RUTHFULLY YOURS

Ron DeSantis was in south Texas this morning and, in a speech to supporters at a small venue that allowed for questions, he focused on the border war in America, where Texas is the front line. DeSantis promised that, if he becomes president, he will stop illegal immigration, both at the border and across America. His prescriptions are very good, for they utilize every bit of government authority available to him and to the border states.

Bill Melugin conducted an interview with DeSantis before the latter gave his speech. In the following tweet, Melugin summarizes the key points DeSantis was preparing to make:

I’ve embedded a video of the full speech below, but here are a few of my favorite points from the main speech:

• It’s not just Latin Americans coming across the border. People are coming from Libya, Tajikistan, and China, with many of the illegal aliens appearing on government watch lists.
• Children are being rented and sold to adult males so that they can gain easier entry as the child’s parent.
• He’ll provide more resources to the Coast Guard to police maritime illegal entry, which is a big problem in Florida.
• He’ll authorize instant deportations because illegal aliens won’t make dangerous journeys or spend thousands of dollars knowing they’ll be turned back at the border.
• He’ll properly enforce asylum laws, which require that people claim asylum as soon as they reach safety, rather than cross the border illegally and claim asylum after the fact. His administration will support only legitimate asylum claims, not the 90% or so of fake claims.
• If the federal government can’t or won’t do its job on immigration, DeSantis would deputize local authorities to enforce those same laws. [This would get around administrative agencies refusing to do their jobs.]
• He’ll crack down on local jurisdictions engaging in illegal “sanctuary” activity by turning off the federal money spigot.
• He’d use rules of engagement when cartels destroy the walls to provide openings for people to cross. “I say, use force to repel them.”
• He’d lean hard against the drug cartels.

Image: Ron DeSantis in Eagle Pass. YouTube screen grab.

During the Q&A (and can you imagine Biden doing that?), De Santis also said that states such as Texas have a right to declare and help repel an invasion of their sovereign territory.

I like everything DeSantis had to say on the subject. My concern is that, if elected, he’ll discover, as Trump did, that he’s fighting a multi-headed hydra.

The Democrats, of course, will be the most obvious adversary because they’re politically invested in illegal immigration, which swells their voting rolls. Indeed, Texas has now become majority Hispanic, although it’s unclear whether the count includes illegal immigrants. The real question, though, is whether this new majority is conservative or if Democrat policies have succeeded in flipping Texas from red to blue.

There are other, less obvious adversaries, as well. We know that the Deep State, with backing from activist judges, will do everything it can to block any of these initiatives. That’s because it’s out in the open now that its members (and too many judges) are no longer impartial government servants but, instead, Democrat party foot soldiers.

The worst damage, though, will come from Republicans. We’ve learned that many of them support illegal immigration, whether because they want cheap, easily-abused labor or because they’re so terrified of the term “racist” they’ll do anything to avoid that label. In this regard, please recall that, during his first two years, Trump had a Republican majority in Congress and couldn’t do a darn thing about the border.

I know that Vivek Ramaswamy and Trump are willing to be clear about the need to repel the border invasion. I await such full-throated statements from other Republican candidates. Sadly, Tim Scott’s and Nikki Haley’s websites are such a mess, not to mention looking as if the same generic “consultants” prepared both, that I couldn’t find a straightforward statement of their core policy promises.