Five more Texas counties have joined in calling the crisis on our southern border “an invasion,” bringing the total number of counties to seventeen—Parker, Goliad, Wise, Wilson, Johnson, Live Oak, Tyler, Atascosa, Terrell, Kinney, Burnet, Medina, Chambers, Liberty, Orange, Hardin and Ellis. Ellis County was particularly pointed in placing responsibility on Gov. Abbott to “immediately prevent and/or remove all persons trespassing as well as invading the sovereignty of Texas and that of the United States.”

That’s a pretty comprehensive call to action, and one that can only happen if the Governor invokes Article I, Section 10 of the United States Constitution and Article IV, Section 7 of the Texas Constitution. And while Abbott did sign an executive order last month calling the situation an “invasion,” he has stopped short of allowing state police or the National Guard to deport illegals. Instead, he has waffled, citing worries that doing so would place state officials at risk of federal prosecution. To which my response is, I think AG Paxton is up to the task. He’s the feistiest Attorney General we’ve ever had. Bring it!

Instead, Abbott goes for political theater and optics. His order last year to stop commercial trucks at the border likely resulted in few or no seizures of smuggled drugs or humans, but rather in snarled lines at the points of entry that slowed Texas businesses. Likewise, his authorization to return illegals to the border is an empty gesture, as it falls short of deportation.

Finally, his busing of border crashers to New York and D.C., while successful in making him a burr under the blanket of those blue municipalities, is little more than a cute photo op, as Arizona gubernatorial candidate, Kari Lake, called it. It does precisely nothing to mitigate the tidal wave of illegal immigration, the damage that paramilitary and narco-terrorist cartels are inflicting on our border communities and beyond, nor the suffering to which trafficked humans are subjected.

Perhaps the biggest tell among this last round of counties declaring an invasion is the one from Ellis County, where the Board of Commissioners voted unanimously in favor of the declaration. Ellis County is south of Dallas, a full seven hours away from the border, yet to a man, the Commissioners recognized that the flood of drugs and unvetted illegals issuing from those border counties affects all of Texas. Just the explosion of fentanyl in the state has far reaching impacts on the safety of our communities, and the mental health and well-being of our citizens. Crime rates and incidence of drug overdoses are the stats that tell the story.

Compare and contrast Abbott’s inaction to the campaign promise Lake has breathed fire into—the very first day after she is elected Arizona Governor, she will declare the incursions on her state’s southern border “an invasion.” There is no grandstanding here, no political one upmanship. We’ve seen the drone footage of the cartels’ foot soldiers imbedding themselves on the U.S. side of the Arizona border. They are taking ownership of the border on both sides. And Kari Lake is dead serious about stopping it. Is Abbott? Don’t we as Texans have the obligation to demand that he takes a similar hard line stance?

While I cannot prove this as of yet, there is anecdotal evidence of the narco-terrorist organizations commandeering Arizona ranches along the border at gunpoint. This sort of thing had been commonplace in Mexico, and now it’s here. Will it take the invasion becoming a full occupation for Abbott to take the vital and necessary action to uphold and protect our state’s sovereignty? By then, Governor, I’m afraid it will be too late. Then you will need more than the National Guard. You will need an army.

Nothing short of a declaration now by Governor Abbott that invokes the Constitution and unshackles law enforcement at all levels to do its job will suffice. The rest is smoke and mirrors. The time to point fingers at the Biden Administration has long past. Their agenda to destabilize and bankrupt the country, undermine the working class with cheap illegal labor, and forever change the outcome of our elections in their favor by diluting the electorate with illegal votes is crystal clear.

They’ve zero interest in securing the border and we all know it.  But we have an existential interest in doing so. This is an issue that deeply impacts the future of all Texans. It is time we demand that Abbott do the right thing.