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Republicans Governors, National Guard and the Texas Border: What to Know

AUSTIN, Texas — As Republicans cheer on Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s escalating feud with the Biden administration over immigration enforcement, some governors are considering deploying National Guard members to the border — again.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Thursday was among the first to commit more personnel to Texas, announcing he would send hundreds of additional guard members as tensions grow between state authorities and the U.S. government over who has the power to enforce immigration policies, where and how.

Republicans say tougher actions along the border are needed in response to record levels of illegal crossings, but sending guard members to the border is not new.

DeSantis is one of more than a dozen Republican governors who have sent state National Guard units to the southern border since 2021. His latest deployment comes as Texas continues to deny U.S. Border Patrol agents entry to a popular crossing spot for migrants in the border city of Eagle Pass.

Here’s what to know about National Guard on the border to date:

What is happening at the Texas border?

At the center of the clash between Texas officials and the federal government is Shelby Park in Eagle Pass, which has become one of the busiest locations for people attempting to cross into the U.S. illegally from Mexico. Earlier this month, troops from the Texas National Guard seized the park and began turning away federal immigration authorities despite pleas from U.S. government officials.

Immigration enforcement is typically a federal responsibility.

Abbott has said he will continue implementing new immigration measures, calling it a “constitutional right to self-defense.” Earlier this month, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that federal agents were allowed to remove razor wire placed by Texas officers along the border with Mexico, including in Shelby Park.

Texas has since installed more razor wire in Eagle Pass, which was not prohibited under the Supreme Court’s order. The Biden administration has argued that the wiring makes it difficult and dangerous for federal agents to perform their duties.

Other measures taken by Abbott as part of his border security initiative include a floating barrier installed in the Rio Grande near Eagle Pass, which has also been challenged by federal officials.

Who is sending guard members?

Florida has already sent more than 1,000 guard members, troopers and other officers to the Texas border since last May, according to the Florida Division of Emergency Management.

At least a dozen governors have sent deployments ranging in size from a few dozen guard members to more than 100, including those of Arkansas, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Virginia and West Virginia.

South Dakota GOP Gov. Kristi Noem was the first to send 50 guard members to Texas in 2021, which were paid for by a private Republican donor who offered $1 million to make the mission possible. Two years later, she deployed at least 50 more.

Some governors have also looked beyond the National Guard, including Idaho Gov. Brad Little, who said last week he would send additional members of the state police to Texas.

What do they do?

The most recent guard deployments have been in support of Abbott’s border mission known as Operation Lone Star, which began shortly after President Joe Biden took office.

Many have been used for surveillance, such as spotting illegal crossings. Migrants are then turned over to federal immigration authorities, although Abbott has also empowered Texas National Guard members to arrest migrants on misdemeanor trespassing charges in some areas. National Guard members have also installed barricades and razor wire.

After Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds sent more than 100 Guard members and more than 30 state police to Texas last year, she credited the deployments with being directly involved in dozens of human smuggling cases and arrests.

But South Dakota records show that some days troops had little to do. During a rushed deployment of Texas National Guard members at the start of the mission, some also complained of low morale and uneventful patrols.

Trespassing arrests have been a key part of Abbott’s nearly $10 billion border mission, but may soon be phased out under a new state law, set to take effect in March, which allows police anywhere in Texas to arrest migrants who are suspected of entering the U.S. illegally.

How else is the National Guard used?

Not all National Guard members are helping Texas.

In Massachusetts, Democratic Gov. Maura Healey activated hundreds of guard members last August to aid with an influx of migrants. The members helped coordinate food, transportation, medical care and other basic needs at shelters and hotels.

National Guard members from across the country are also in Texas helping with the border security operations under the command of federal authorities, including from states that have not deployed soldiers to help with Operation Lone Star.
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Biden Wins South Carolina’s Democratic Primary

COLUMBIA, South carolina — U.S. President Joe Biden overwhelmingly won South Carolina’s Democratic primary on Saturday, notching a 2024 victory in the state that vaulted him to the White House four years ago. 

Biden defeated the long-shot Democrats on South Carolina’s ballot, including Minnesota Representative Dean Phillips and author Marianne Williamson. 

“In 2020, it was the voters of South Carolina who proved the pundits wrong, breathed new life into our campaign, and set us on the path to winning the presidency,” Biden said in a statement. “Now in 2024, the people of South Carolina have spoken again and I have no doubt that you have set us on the path to winning the Presidency again — and making Donald Trump a loser — again.” 

The president’s campaign had invested heavily in driving up turnout for Biden, aiming to test-drive efforts to mobilize Black voters, who are a key part of the Democratic vote in South Carolina and central to Biden’s strategy for victory in November. 

Biden’s win comes in a state that he and other party leaders wanted to lead the party’s 2024 primary calendar. In picking South Carolina, they cited the state’s far more racially diverse population compared to the traditional first-in-the-nation states of Iowa and New Hampshire, which are overwhelmingly white. 

In defiance of the Democratic National Committee, New Hampshire held a leadoff primary last month anyway. But without the president’s or the national party’s backing and no delegates officially at stake, the contest was nonbinding. Biden still won New Hampshire by a sizable margin after supporters mounted a write-in campaign on his behalf. 

South Carolina, where Biden has long held deep relationships with supporters and donors, played a pivotal role in his 2020 campaign, where a big win helped revive a flagging effort in other early-voting states and propelled him to the nomination. 

Biden has been aided in his South Carolina campaign by Representative Jim Clyburn, whose 2020 endorsement served as a long-awaited signal to the state’s Black voters that Biden would be the right candidate to advocate for their interests. 

Both Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, the first Black woman and Asian American to serve in the role, have consistently thanked the state’s Democrats for their support.  

A week ago, Biden told attendees at a state party fundraiser that “you’re the reason I am president.” He also argued to an audience of hundreds of party faithful that they were “the reason Donald Trump is a loser. And you’re the reason we’re going to win and beat him again,” framing the likely general election matchup with the GOP’s current front-runner. 

Biden’s reelection campaign has said it was using the state’s primary to test strategies and messages that best motivate Black voters to the polls for the November general election. Though the state is solidly Republican, South Carolina’s diverse primary voters mirror the Democratic coalition that Biden must hold together to win another term. 

Black voters interviewed during the recent early voting period listed a range of reasons for supporting Biden, from his administration’s defense of abortion rights to appointing Black jurists and other minorities to the federal courts. Some echoed Biden’s warnings that Trump would threaten democracy as he continues to push lies that the 2020 vote was stolen. 

“We can’t live with a leader that will make this into a dictatorship. We can’t live in a place that is not a democracy. That will be a fall for America,” said LaJoia Broughton, a 42-year-old small business owner in Columbia. “So my vote is with Biden. It has been with Biden and will continue to be with Biden.” 

Some voters said they were concerned about the 81-year-old Biden’s age, as many Americans have said they are in public polling. Trump is 77. Both men have had a series of public flubs that have fueled skepticism about their readiness. 

“They’re as old as I am and to have these two guys be the only choices, that’s kind of difficult,” said Charles Trower, a 77-year-old from Blythewood, South Carolina. “But I would much rather have President Biden than even consider the other guy.” 

From South Carolina, the Democratic nominating calendar moves to Nevada, which holds its primary on Tuesday, and then to Michigan on Feb. 27. 
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Court to Rule If ‘Insurrection Provision’ Voids Trump’s Eligibility

washington — A case with the potential to disrupt former U.S. President Donald Trump’s drive to return to the White House is putting the U.S. Supreme Court uncomfortably at the center of the 2024 presidential campaign. 

In arguments Thursday, the justices will, for the first time, wrestle with a constitutional provision that was adopted after the Civil War to prevent former officeholders who “engaged in insurrection” from reclaiming power. 

The case is the court’s most direct involvement in a presidential election since Bush v. Gore, a decision delivered a quarter-century ago that effectively delivered the 2000 election to Republican George W. Bush. It comes to a court that has been buffeted by criticism over ethics, which led the justices to adopt their first code of conduct in November, and at a time when public approval of the court is diminished, at near-record lows in surveys. 

The dispute stems from the push by Republican and independent voters in Colorado to kick Trump off the state’s Republican primary ballot because of his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss to Democrat Joe Biden, culminating in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. 

Colorado’s highest court determined that Trump incited the riot in the nation’s capital and is ineligible to be president again as a result and should not be on the ballot for the state’s primary on March 5. 

A victory for the Colorado voters would amount to a declaration from the justices, who include three appointed by Trump when he was president, that he did engage in insurrection and is barred by the 14th Amendment from holding office again. That would allow states to keep him off the ballot and imperil his campaign. 

A definitive ruling for Trump would largely end efforts in Colorado, Maine and elsewhere to prevent his name from appearing on the ballot. 

The justices could opt for a less conclusive outcome, but with the knowledge that the issue could return to them, perhaps after the general election in November and during a full-blown constitutional crisis. 

The court has signaled it will try to act quickly, dramatically shortening the period in which it receives a written briefing and holds arguments in the courtroom. 

Trump is separately appealing to state court a ruling by Maine’s Democratic secretary of state, Shenna Bellows, that he was ineligible to appear on that state’s ballot over his role in the Capitol attack. Both the Colorado Supreme Court and the Maine secretary of state’s rulings are on hold until the appeals play out. 

In 2000, in Bush v. Gore, the court and the parties were divided over whether the justices should intervene at all. 

The conservative-driven 5-4 decision has been heavily criticized ever since, especially given that the court cautioned against using the case as precedent when the unsigned majority opinion declared that “our consideration is limited to the present circumstances.” 

In the current case, both parties want the matter settled, and quickly. 

Trump’s campaign declined to make anyone available for this story, but his lawyers urged the justices not to delay. 

Justice Clarence Thomas is the only sitting member of the court who was on the bench for Bush v. Gore. He was part of that majority. 

But three other justices joined the legal fight on Bush’s side: Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett. Bush eventually put Roberts on a federal appeals court and then appointed him chief justice. Bush hired Kavanaugh to important White House jobs before making him an appellate judge, too. 

Kavanaugh and Barrett were elevated to the Supreme Court by Trump, who also appointed Justice Neil Gorsuch. 

Thomas has ignored calls by some Democratic lawmakers and ethics professors to step aside from the current case. They note that his wife, Ginni Thomas, supported Trump’s effort to overturn the results of the 2020 election. Ginni Thomas repeatedly texted White House chief of staff Mark Meadows in the weeks after that election, once referring to it as a “heist,” and she attended the rally that preceded the storming of the Capitol by Trump supporters. Nearly two years later, she told the congressional committee investigating the attack that she regretted sending the texts. 

Trump lost 60 different court challenges to his false claims that there was massive voter fraud that would have changed the results of that election. 

The Supreme Court ruled repeatedly against Trump and his allies in 2020 election-related lawsuits, as well as his efforts to keep documents related to Jan. 6 and his tax returns from being turned over to congressional committees. 

But the conservative majority Trump’s appointees cemented has produced decisions that overturned the 5-decade-old constitutional right to abortion, expanded gun rights, and struck down affirmative action in college admissions. 

The issue of whether Trump can be on the ballot is just one among several matters related to the former president or Jan. 6 that have reached the high court. The justices declined a request from special counsel Jack Smith to rule swiftly on Trump’s claims that he is immune from prosecution, though the issue could be back before the court soon depending on the ruling of a Washington-based appeals court. 

In April, the court will hear an appeal that could upend hundreds of charges stemming from the Capitol riot, including against Trump. 
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Court Filing Reveals Relationship Between District Attorney, Special Prosecutor in Trump Case

atlanta, georgia — A court filing Friday discloses that Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis is involved in a “personal relationship” with a special prosecutor she hired for the Georgia election interference case against former President Donald Trump, but she argues there are no grounds to dismiss the case or to remove her from the prosecution. 

Willis hired special prosecutor Nathan Wade in November 2021 to assist her investigation into whether the Republican former president and others broke any laws as they tried to overturn his loss in the 2020 presidential election in Georgia. Since Trump and 18 others were indicted in August, Wade has led the team of lawyers Willis assembled to prosecute the case. 

In an affidavit accompanying the filing, Wade said that in 2022, he and the district attorney had developed a personal relationship in addition to their “professional association and friendship.” 

He also said he had never lived with Willis nor shared a financial account or household expenses with her. He said none of the funds paid to him as part of the job have been shared with Willis, an attempt to undercut defense lawyer claims of a conflict of interest. 

Wade described himself and Willis as “both financially independent professionals; expenses or personal travel were roughly divided equally between us.” 

“At times,” Wade said, “I have made and purchased travel for District Attorney Willis and myself from my personal funds. At other times District Attorney Willis has made and purchased travel for she and I from her personal funds.” 

“I have no financial interest in the outcome of the 2020 election interference case or in the conviction of any defendant,” he wrote. 

The Friday filing by Willis’ team came in response to a motion filed last month by defense attorney Ashleigh Merchant, who represents Trump co-defendant Michael Roman. The motion alleged that Willis and Wade were in an inappropriate romantic relationship that created a conflict of interest. The filing seeks to dismiss the case and to have Willis and Wade and their offices barred from further prosecuting the case. 

Trump and at least one other co-defendant, Georgia attorney Robert Cheeley, have filed motions to join Roman’s effort to dismiss the indictment and remove Willis from the case. 

Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee, who’s presiding over the election case, has set a February 15 hearing on Roman’s motion. Willis and Wade are among a dozen witnesses Merchant has subpoenaed to testify at that hearing. 

The Friday filing asks McAfee to dismiss Roman’s motion without a hearing. 
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