Our news today comes from a public letter sent by Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas to President Joe Biden.
January 24, 2024
The federal government has broken the compact between the United States and the States. The Executive Branch of the United States has a constitutional duty to enforce federal laws protecting States, including immigration laws on the books right now. President Biden has refused to enforce those laws and has even violated them. The result is that he has smashed records for illegal immigration.
Despite having been put on notice in a series of letters—one of which I delivered to him by hand—President Biden has ignored Texas’s demand that he perform his constitutional duties.
• President Biden has violated his oath to faithfully execute immigration laws enacted by Congress. Instead of prosecuting immigrants for the federal crime of illegal entry, President Biden has sent his lawyers into federal courts to sue Texas for taking action to secure the border.
• President Biden has instructed his agencies to ignore federal statutes that mandate the detention of illegal immigrants. The effect is to illegally allow their en masse parole into the United States.
• By wasting taxpayer dollars to tear open Texas’s border security infrastructure, President Biden has enticed illegal immigrants away from the 28 legal entry points along this State’s southern border— bridges where nobody drowns—and into the dangerous waters of the Rio Grande.
Under President Biden’s lawless border policies, more than 6 million illegal immigrants have crossed our southern border in just 3 years. That is more than the population of 33 different States in this country. This illegal refusal to protect the States has inflicted unprecedented harm on the People all across the United States.
James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and the other visionaries who wrote the U.S. Constitution foresaw that States should not be left to the mercy of a lawless president who does nothing to stop external threats like cartels smuggling millions of illegal immigrants across the border. That is why the Framers included both Article IV, § 4, which promises that the federal government “shall protect each [State] against invasion,” and Article I, § 10, Clause 3, which acknowledges “the States’ sovereign interest in protecting their borders.” Arizona v. United States, 567 U.S. 387, 419 (2012) (Scalia, J., dissenting).
The failure of the Biden Administration to fulfill the duties imposed by Article IV, § 4 has triggered Article I, § 10, Clause 3, which reserves to this State the right of self-defense. For these reasons, I have already declared an invasion under Article I, § 10, Clause 3 to invoke Texas’s constitutional authority to defend and protect itself. That authority is the supreme law of the land and supersedes any federal statutes to the contrary. The Texas National Guard, the Texas Department of Public Safety, and other Texas personnel are acting on that authority, as well as state law, to secure the Texas border.
Greg Abbott
Governor of Texas
So, how’s that civil war stuff workin’ out for everybody? Excited? You ready to see the states divide? Because you know, I’m not thrilled. I could do without a civil war, thank you very much. But, then again, I guess nobody asked me!
But, I’ll be honest, I’m not as certain that this will turn into large scale violence as some people seem to be. Now, I wasn’t born yesterday. I can see that many, if not all, the ingredients needed to cause a split republic are there. But let’s just table that part of the discussion because I think that those conversations are not particularly illuminating at this point. The Republic COULD split—sure. Lots of things COULD happen. And it may even be likely. But I’m not a prophet, nor a prophet’s son. And while it IS important to be like the Sons of Issachar and understand the times so that we know what to do, it’s also important to focus on first things first. Prioritization matters.
But perhaps I’m getting ahead of myself. My point is that focusing on a civil war in response to a potential conflict between Texas and the Feds is something that COULD happen. But we have pressing issues that concern us about what IS HAPPENING. And what IS happening has been described by Governor Abbott as an invasion.
Now, we TEND to think of an invasion in this context as uniformed soldiers entering another nation’s sovereign space and doing harm. We think of invasion in the context of war. But that’s not an invasion is, necessarily. The word comes from Latin and simply means “to walk in.”
Now, the State of Texas has produced a handy-dandy handout that explains what the word meant and entailed to the Founders, so that we can know with constitutional confidence what constitutes an invasion.
The Texas explanation summarizes the history of the word in English as well as its use in the Founders’ day to essentially include two things: entry and enmity.
Or to put it another way, an invasion, in the early 19th Century, meant entering a place with bad intentions. And that’s a pretty broad set of criteria. Now, you can read the Texas argument, or you can go to the library and do your own etymological research with synchronic and diachronic word studies and come to your own conclusions. But for my part, I find the Texas arguments, for the most part, compelling.
But here’s the thing, that’s not even the most crucial part, as far as I’m concerned. Yes, six million people have illegally entered this country over the past 3 years. That’s nearly 2 percent of our population. Now, you might not think that that’s very important. But I think it is, and Texas thinks it is, and according to polling, the American people, en masse, think it is.
It matters because it signals that the Federal government does not intend to enforce the law. It matters because it undermines the concept of citizenship. It matters because a whole lot of criminals—and that’s what they are is criminals—a whole lot of criminals who do not understand our political system or philosophy coming in will undermine our political order. It matters because importing criminals into a society is not good. It matters because it is going to flood the nation with cheap labor—which is great if you’re trying to drive down wages; it’s not so great if you’re a tradesman or factory worker or, in fact, if you work in anything other than the classic professions. It matters because feeding, clothing, educating, and housing these people comes with astronomical costs. It matters because these people come with an astronomical coststo which they have never paid in. It matters because having a welfare state and open borders is a recipe for rapid bankruptcy. It matters because it encourages the nation to be transformed rather than to transform—it harms the body politic—it is contrary to the political philosophy necessary to the perpetuation of a thriving republic.
Friends, in short, if you don’t want to call it an invasion, we can debate that. But what is undeniable is that it’s colonization. Yes. America is being colonized. We’re being told that we’re being colonized, and that’s a good thing. Parents in Brooklyn are supposed to be happy that their children’s schools are shut down to be illegal immigrant hotels!
Oh, hold on, the fact-checkers are coming…no, the school wasn’t shut down…no, it’s just that students couldn’t come to the school and had to learn online—totally different thing. Everyone, let’s all take a moment to have a brief time of silence to send our thankfulness vibes to the deities of our choices that we have fact checkers who can help us rubes understand the nuance between shutting down a school to house criminal colonists at taxpayer expense and not letting the kids enter the building because the school is being used to house criminal colonists at taxpayer expense. Boy howdy, if we didn’t have fact-checkers I don’t know WHAT we would do! But I digress.
We have all these profound minds telling us that there just is no real alternative. We’re told it’s not a crisis. We’re told it’s all under control. We’re told that congress just needs to give more money. We’re told that the problem is the processing—more courts are needed to adjudicate these asylum claims. We’re essentially told to lie back and think happy thoughts as millions of people pour through the border and illegally enter the country.
And based upon estimates from Border Patrol, the rates of people coming into the country are only increasing—a 40% bump from FY2021.
But even if it stays static we’ve had six million since Biden took office. So we can expect another million (AT MINIMUM) next year. But as current rates are closer to 300k per month that means that even if the current monthly rate stays static that in FY2024 there could be another 3.6 million.
Now, I’m not the governor of Ohio, but if I were I would make it known that Ohio will not receive a single one of those people and any of them sent here will be turned away at the Ohio border and any of them sneaked in will be sent to DC. But that’s another story for another day.
Friends the numbers are staggering. If current rates hold, not even grow, but hold that means that under Joe Biden there would be almost 10 million illegal colonists who have been permitted to enter this country, often at taxpayer expense.
That’s 10 million criminals—I will never cease saying this—they are criminals—10 million criminals, who have no respect for our laws, who often cannot speak our language, who do not share our political philosophy, who do not share our values, who do not believe in our republic. They are colonizers. We are being colonized. And you can tell me that’s a good thing all you want, but I’m never going to believe it.
And the reason I refuse to believe it is because it means that America is doomed. Strong cultures colonize weaker ones. And strength and weakness have nothing to do with wealth, technological might, or even cultural superiority. It comes down to one thing: the will to thrive.
When a culture has a will to live and thrive it produces children. Those children need resources. They want land, resources, and opportunity. So if they cannot find enough of it in their home territory they look elsewhere. And when they find a place they either integrate into the foreign society. OR, if they refuse to integrate they become a colony. And a colony is an extension of the homeland in a foreign territory. Now, if the colonizers and the colonized both have a strong will to live and thrive and there is a conflict, the superior side, whether superior culturally or militarily, and yes, there are superior and inferior cultures and if you’re a person who says there aren’t then you’re silly. But the superior culture will win if the colonizing struggle is on cultural terms. If it’s in military terms then the militarily superior side will win.
But what happens when a nation that is culturally and militarily superior is colonized by an inferior force? The only way that can happen is if the superior nation lacks the will to resist. The American people have the cultural, technological, political, and military resources to stop and reverse this colonization. We could stop it now. And we could begin reversing it now. All it takes is the will. We need the intellectual, political, and moral will to thrive.
Unfortunately, as often happens in decadent societies, we seem to have lost our will to thrive and even our will to live. We lack the will to survive and thrive as a culture. Now, not all of us. Indeed, there are many, many people who have a very strong desire to see a traditional American society continue to survive and thrive. There are many who want to preserve and perpetuate the republic.
Now, apart from Representative Brian Babin, from Texas, few people have called this what it is: colonization.
Now, you might say, “Ummm, Luke, what does this have to do with the Bible?” Well, the reality is that colonization is a pretty significant topic in the Bible. The colonization of Egypt by the Israelites led to some pretty unpleasant consequences—and in that instance the Egyptians invited the colony. When the Israelites came to Canaan that was conquest, but if you want to call it colonization that might not be the worst description possible. The Samaritans are a people group who resulted from the intermarriage of Israelites with displaced people groups who created colonies in the area that was once the Northern Kingdom of Israel. The Judeans, created clusters of Jews throughout the world after they were exiled by Nebuchadnezzar and these became small Jewish colonies throughout the Near East and Middle East and eventually into Europe and beyond.
People living in a land that isn’t their homeland and not integrating with the dominant surrounding culture is colonization. And it isn’t always bad. For instance the Israelites could have been a great boon to the Egyptian people by bringing them the living and true God and bringing God’s blessing to the land. Colonization does not HAVE to be violent and oppressive or even net-negative.
However, the Bible is clear that, and again, using Israel in Egypt as an example—or using the Judeans in the Medo-Persian empire for example—a people group that lives differently and refuses to assimilate is often perceived as a threat, morally, theologically, economically, or politically.
And friends, let’s not forget that Christianity is effectively the colonization of Christ in the world.
However, that said, not all colonization is good. The Mosaic law is pretty clear that if people refuse to assimilate and live according to God’s laws that those people are to be ejected to punished accordingly. Not all colonization is good either.
As a person who loves Ohio and America, as a man who believes in one Republic, under God, I don’t take kindly to this new wave of colonists. I do not think we should allow ourselves to be colonized. I think we should resist. We’re certainly capable of resisting. The question is whether or not we have the will.
Do we, as a nation, have the will to live? Do we have the will to preserve and perpetuate the republic. Do we have the will to support and defend the constitution? Because if we don’t then I guess we’re the weaker society.
Decadence comes at a cost. And perhaps the most significant part of that cost is that decadence weakens the will. Fortunately, there’s an antidote to being a weak-willed, decadent, conquered society.
Fortunately, there is a way of living, moving, and having our being that will give us the will to live, thrive, and secure the blessings of liberty for ourselves and our posterity.
Fortunately, faith in Christ, lived out faithfully, will redound to having the will to resist being colonized, and instead to flourish, and once again for America to be the world’s last best hope.