George P. Bush talks border security in lead up to AG runoff

“I think the case ends up being moot,” said Texas Land Commissioner George P. Bush during an April 25 interview with The Monitor to discuss Title 42 and other border security issues ahead of the May 24 Republican primary runoff for Texas Attorney General against incumbent Ken Paxton.

Bush was speaking of Paxton’s April 22 lawsuit against the Biden administration’s plans to end the Trump-era immigration policy come May 23.

“He sought injunctive relief earlier in the year, but I think the case brought by Missouri, Louisiana and Arizona was more timely than Ken’s,” Bush said.

Those statements would turn out to be prescient, because — just hours later — a Louisiana federal judge presiding over a separate lawsuit brought by those other states temporarily blocked the administration’s plans to phase out Title 42.

Implemented by then-President Donald Trump in March 2020, Title 42 has allowed immigration officials to turn back and expel migrants arriving at the southern border by using a provision of the Public Health Services Act aimed at preventing communicable diseases.

The Trump administration cited the COVID-19 pandemic, which was then in its infancy as it spread across the globe.

But two years later, with the advent of several effective vaccines and treatments — combined with the Democratic Party’s differing policies on immigration — the Biden administration has been planning for months to end the policy.

Several Republican-led states filed suit against the federal government in order to prevent that, including Texas via Attorney General Ken Paxton. But as Bush alleges, Paxton’s lawsuit was not only too late, but redundant — an example of the attorney general’s inept leadership.

Bush was critical of Paxton’s tenure as AG, saying a successful attorney general does more than simply file lawsuits.

To date, Paxton has filed nearly two dozen lawsuits against the administration since Biden took office last January. About 10 of those involve immigration and border security.

“My argument against Ken against border issues is (it’s) more than just filing a lawsuit, it’s actually winning and deploying the legal resources we have in Austin to help… enforce criminal trespassing claims which the governor has authorized under executive order, Operation Lone Star,” Bush said.

However, Bush himself is no stranger to lawsuits.

As land commissioner, Bush filed his own lawsuit against Biden and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. In it, he alleges that the government is illegally preventing border wall construction which has already been funded via Congressional appropriations.

But like Paxton’s Title 42 lawsuit, Bush’s border wall suit — filed in McAllen federal court last July — is currently on hold after U.S. District Judge Micaela Alvarez ruled that her own considerations of the arguments must be delayed pending a U.S. Supreme Court decision in a related case.

Still, Bush says as attorney general Paxton has done little to improve border security — particularly when it comes to supporting Gov. Greg Abbott’s Operation Lone Star.

The governor launched the program last March after declaring a state of disaster in Texas’ border counties.

As part of the executive order, hundreds of Texas Department of Public Safety troopers, as well as more than 10,000 Texas National Guard troops, were deployed to the border to aid federal agents in surveilling the border.

But the initiative goes beyond patrolling manpower. The executive order also empowered local law enforcement to arrest migrants on state criminal trespassing charges, allowing for scores of mostly men to be held in border county jails.

The program has come under fire — even garnering a characterization as “unconstitutional” by one Travis County judge — after dozens of the arrestees were subsequently released because prosecutors failed to include information in charging documents, and because the migrants had been denied access to legal counsel.

Bush lays the blame for such criminal justice bungles at Paxton’s feet, saying the attorney general could do more to ease the process bottlenecks in the rural counties whose limited staffs are dealing with the bulk of the arrests.

“With respect to the indefinite detention of illegal immigrants, I think, honestly, what you’re saying there confirms the reason why my border plan is the better plan than what Ken is doing, because county (district attorneys) can’t process the claims quickly enough,” Bush said.

Bush said he would work with local law enforcement to get them the resources they need to handle the increase in arrests.

But it remains unclear how a state office would help county agencies whose limited budgets for personnel, such as attorneys and law enforcement officers, are funded through local taxes.

Nonetheless, helping Abbott enforce his Operation Lone Star initiatives is among Bush’s top campaign priorities — including gaining cooperation from officials who have thus far been reluctant or outright unwilling to participate in them.

For instance, the majority of the trespassing arrests have occurred in rural Kinney and Val Verde counties near Del Rio. Trump won both counties in the 2020 general election.

But in the Rio Grande Valley — where the majority of the four-county region voted for Joe Biden — officials have pushed back against participating in Operation Lone Star, including arresting migrants for state-level crimes.

“If they choose not to enforce state criminal trespassing claims or property claims, then I will go to the legislature and do the job for them,” Bush said.

“If county sheriffs want to play politics with it, that’s fine. But the governor has made the call on this and that’s allowing state officials to enforce state criminal trespassing and property claims,” he added a moment later.

But Bush’s comments weren’t meant as a wholesale indictment of the Valley’s four counties, which he acknowledged has dealt with the brunt of migrant surges in the past.

Instead, the man who has become quite familiar with securing federal disaster relief funding for Texans due to his position as land commissioner said he would put those skills to use when it comes to helping local entities defray the cost of dealing with migrant influxes — including here in the Valley.

McAllen Mayor Javier Villalobos has publicly urged the president to reconsider lifting Title 42, saying that the resultant migrant influx would put a strain on a county that has been disproportionately impacted by COVID-19.

Beyond the public health concerns, however, previous migrant influxes have put tremendous financial strain on municipalities, such as McAllen, which often fund the humanitarian organizations that aid the migrants.

Bush said he would work to change that.

“What it requires is working through the congressional delegation, among others, to reach to the president that he has to understand that this is an unfair and unequitable expense that’s being placed on border communities,” he said.

The land commissioner pledged to sit down with locals to learn what their priorities are — something he said Paxton has not done.

Early voting in the primary runoff lasts for only one week — from May 16-20. Election day is May 24.