INVASION:...Texas Gov. Greg Abbott Plays Excitable Word Games...Last Real "Invasion" Came in 1944...Migrants Not Armed...Mexican Cartels Don't Need The Cash...

 

 

By DUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ

McALLEN, Texas |...Did I miss something? What's that you say - we have an existential "invasion" at the Mexican border? Wow! I hadn't heard a single shot fired or any sort of anguished cries from the many wounded. Invasion?

Well, that's what Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is selling to the state, nation and his Republican Party.

I must’ve missed the part where the U.S. is now at war with another country. I must’ve also missed the part where the "invasion" on the border is an armed invasion by an invading force at war with the U.S. Jeepers, creepers. Maybe I should go get my rifle, load it and have it at the ready.

By my rack, or the front door, yes.

But no, I saw nothing of the sort when I took a drive down to the Rio Grande, or border, the other day - a nice and cold Mid-January day full of calm and birds. Pieces of that fabled Border Wall can be seen here and there down in the dusty and tiny city of Hidalgo, where the international bridge connecting us with Reynosa, Mexico sees brisk motor and pedestrian traffic. It's just there, not imposing or holding back any sort of armed surge by migrants insisting on getting into this country.

Abbott, however, has riled up everybody.

The mood on the border seemed the same usual, that well-known people getting here and there mood. Shoppers from Mexico coming over and going back. That same scene we've had around here seemingly forever. Good Mexican people looking for quality goods at the grocery and department store and going back home, helping the local economy. No signs of fear or angst or anything brought on by an invasion on their faces.

Just locals being locals.

But Abbott has created another roadside attraction for bored Americans. A convoy of truckers is said to be on its way to seeing what I saw - nothing much, nothing even remotely dangerous. Oh, well. We live in a time of rage & ruin. Next: Tourist helicopter flyovers up and down the passive Rio Grande.

Our do-nothing Congress is said to be dealing with a plan for the southern border, one that has a few Republicans aboard but also one that has the overwhelming number of Republicans looking at it as a nonstarter, because it, they say, would make Democrat Joe Biden, the president, look as if he solved the silly migrant "invasion."

Oh, well. Again, oh, well.

The word "invasion," of course, is an easy-reach excitable term. It conjures quick fear and imagery of military attack. Thousands of heathens from Central and South America, from the Caribbean, at the gates, all of them tossing grenades at us from the southern banks of the Rio Grande. Armies of invaders, all out to kill every Texan in their way. Women in the murderous mobs, hair in a wild splay and knives in their hands. A full-frontal assault, yeah.

That's what Gov. Abbott sees in our boring border.

Invasion, he keeps crowing.

It's no invasion, one Dwight D. Eisenhower would tell him. It's just the latest wave of poor immigrants looking for a better life - our usual answer to cheap labor, crop-harvesting and restaurant work included.

Only, and this is the cheapest political rub, MAGA Republicans have demonized all immigrants not from Norway. The desire is obvious.

But no, don't go loading your rifles to join the defense against this "invasion." You'll sit there waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting on it...and it won't come...

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