By DUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ
McALLEN, Texas |...So close and, well, so far away. Dealings with the current slash and burn politics of the Mexican Border has been one runaway rollercoaster ride. The migrant problem is still there this morning. No, not as painted by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott or any of his Republican colleagues, but it's there, as it has always been.
We're slogging through an election year, so therein lies the reason for our discontent.
The U.S. Senate has worked-up a bi-partisan legislative bill to sort of address the problem, only senior Republicans in both the Senate and the House of Representatives aren't interested in backing it. This, we should say, after months and months of hemming and hawing about the dangers of a "migrant invasion," in the words of sensationalism-minded Gov. Abbott.
Hell-o, walls.
As in Border Walls and other solutions to a political issue sort of at odds with reality. That migrant surge, according to the U.S. Border Patrol, is no longer a surge. Yet, the Mexican Border is living large as a danger to American society. Don't let the roofers kick you in the ass on their way south. Same for the landscaping guys and the restaurant workers.
We could use some brains these days on all things to do with the Mexican Border. This is a shank of American and Mexican land separated for the most part by a passive, often-shallow river. The migrants will come. They've always come.
That bill now headed for the House authored by a bi-partisan committee in the Senate seems a step in the right direction. The particulars are sort of bureaucratic from what we've heard, but, already, Republicans in the House say it is "dead on arrival."
Yeah, blame Donald Trump for that. He is running for president proudly lugging four criminal cases and indictments totaling 91 felonies...and he is telling Republicans to kill the bill. Passage of it, he says, would help Democrat Joe Biden. How's that, you ask. Well, Trump sees the border migration issue as something he can use against President Biden ahead of the election in November. If the problem is even alleviated just a bit, that would hurt him as give Biden a campaign win.
Of such high school hallway bullshit are we made these days.
Pass the damned bill and keep working on it.
Republicans do not have - and cannot stake - sole claim to the Mexican Border. Neither do Democrats. This is a U.S. responsibility issue, and it should be dealt with the country - not the political party - in mind. Sounds simple and factual, but then there's Trump. Always the liar, always the dude throwing the firecracker at the teacher.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is whole hog in. He has been relentless in coming up with wild solutions (. . .buoys, razor wire, taking over a municipal park in Eagle Pass, et., etc.) while forever parroting Trump's equally harsh solutions. Abbott even said he'd shoot migrants if only the federal government would not arrest him. It sounds dumb, but talk and word-selection is everything in politics.
Will the Republican-controlled House membership hold to its pro-Trump position on the proposed legislation?
Yes. Bank it.
Elections have consequences and winning the White House is getting and eating the cherry off the celebratory cake. Republicans want that victory against Biden in the November General Election. Taking a political position on an issue that affects the entire country is to be expected. Republicans know that without occupying the White House, well, they are the subservient party.
Moods in this country are always swaying back and forth between being united and being dumb.
Republicans are being dumb about the Mexican Border, but they know it. Their fight is for political ground and a little bad P.R. will be endured.
They even roasted one of their own on this bill. U.S. Senator James Lankford of Oklahoma was censured by his state Republican Party. He co-authored the Border Bill now before the House, the one Trump is against. Indeed, Trump has even damned Lankford, who, truth be told, is one of the more conservative senators in the upper chamber.
Trump even told reporters Lankford is one politician he has never endorsed.
Only, as is wont to happen with Trump, of course he did. The media quickly noted, published and broadcast reports and videos in which Trump wholeheartedly endorsed Lankford in his last campaign for reelection.
But that, too, is our political arena.
Fix the border...if it needs fixing. Get back to real work if it doesn't...
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