Gov. Greg Abbott was back in the Rio GrandeValley on Monday, Jan. 30, on another of his frequent trips to talk about border security. This time Abbott was in San Benito to celebrate the construction of the latest part of the border wall project he took up after Donald Trump left the presidency.
This newest section, near the Free Trade International Bridge at Los Indios, might never connect with other elements of what likely will always be an intermittent structure. The individual panels are starting to look like they were designed by the artist Christo, standing at greatly varying distances from the river. Abbott is simply putting them up wherever the state has or can secure the easements.
“The reason why this wall is located here — and the reason why you will see other segments of walls placed in different locations around the state — is because we’re putting a wall up where we get the land rights from the landowner to be able to build a border wall,” he explained at the ceremony.
In many areas the placement of the barrier, which isn’t close enough to the river to have a noticeable effect on illegal crossings, has affected Valley residents’ lives and our economy. Running the fencing north of Brownsville’s once-popular FortBrown golf course is blamed for driving it into bankruptcy. It has stopped construction and expansion projects for RV parks that served Winter Texans from River Bend to Mission, and rendered useless thousands of acres of farmland that owners depended upon for their livelihood.
Abbott’s comments suggest he knows the border wall will never be complete and that it is a futile endeavor — dozens of breaches and tunnels already have proven that it’s ineffective. However, his willingness to continue erecting pieces of it regardless at noncontiguous locations might lead some people to believe that he could have another motive. Maybe he has another reason to continue spending so much of his time so much of taxpayers’ money on it.
Abbott was one of several politicians who embraced Trump’s America-first stance, and ratcheted up the rhetoric after voters removed Trump from the White House. Political analysts place our governor high on the list of likely candidates for the 2024 Republican Party presidential nomination — or to be Trump’s possible running mate if primary voters once again make the former president their standard bearer.
The border wall will never perform the purpose for which it ostensibly is being built. It can, however, serve the unstated purpose of providing Abbott with an unstated but perhaps more attractive outcome, serving as a symbol to potential voters that he is tough on illegal immigration.
It certainly should keep him in Trump’s good graces, unlike another top contender, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, whom Trump already is attacking as a possible challenger for the nomination.
While Abbott presents the image of border hawk to Trump and to voters across the nation, Texas voters can decide if the money that has been taken from them, ostensibly to repair roads, prevent floods and keep the lights on is being better used as a campaign prop that is costing them $25 million per mile.
