Border Security Texas Style

 
Tom Barry, director of the TransBorder Project at the Center for International Policy, has written a piece in the Boston Review called “At War In Texas” that discusses the way Texas has taken the immigration issue into its own hands.  Texas Governor Rick Perry calls the approach the “Texas model of border security.” As Barry writes, “In Texas, can-do confidence often is paired with arrogant go-it-alone posturing.” The result has been increased levels of fear mongering (“tales of al Qaeda or Chinese soldiers hidden in Mexico”) and ballooning budgets at the expense of social services. The extreme approach of many such local authorities has led to a significant reshaping of the immigration issue at even the national level. As Barry writes, “Upgraded to a national-security issue, border control is now afflicted by the fear-mongering, false threat assessments, and budget-gouging that pervade national-security politics.”

KJ