The Cocktail Party Contrarian: Governor Abbott Isn’t the Only One Who Wants To Protect the Border

Texas’s governor issued a statement this week excoriating the Biden administration for its failure to enforce federal law and secure the southern border. “This illegal refusal to protect the States has inflicted unprecedented harm on the People all across the United States,” Governor Abbott wrote.He placed the state National Guard at the border and extended his battle with the Biden administration after the Supreme Court ruled this week that Texas must remove razor wire placed along the Rio Grande, which restricts federal Border Control’s access to the area. Supported by 25 Republican governors, he is holding the line and has called the unobstructed entry of millions of illegal immigrants into America over the last three years an “invasion” that the Department of Homeland Security has allowed to occur.A former Special Forces flight surgeon, Green Beret, and defense department whistleblower, Lieutenant Colonel Pete Chambers, agrees. Just a few weeks ago, in early January, he and five others decided to organize the Take Our Border Back Convoy, a three-state initiative that will kick off on January 29 and culminate in rallies on February 3 in Texas, California and Arizona.Speaking at a Take Our Border Back steering committee meeting earlier this month, Chambers described witnessing as many as 12,500 illegal entrants crossing into the country on December 18th, over the course of just five hours. Quoting Texas Attorney General, Ken Paxton, Chambers said, “Texas will not surrender.”“We need all eyes on our southern states,” another of the organizers, Noél Roberts, a single mother with a salon business and a podcast called patriotmom007, says. She lives outside Phoenix, two hours away from the Mexican border. “I don’t know how any story in America is bigger than this,” she says, lamenting the press’s and elected officials’ failure to talk about the open border’s impact on fentanyl use, human trafficking, and crime across Arizona and the country.The convoy is not just bikers and truckers, Ms. Roberts says: “It’s an all-vehicle rally. We have families, women’s groups, everyone … this is about protecting our kids.”The movement’s web page, takeourborderback.com, and social media platforms are filled with phrases like “peaceful assembly” and “law abiding,” highlighted in bold. Some participants are concerned that the government will target them, label them as extremists, and discredit their message. Others on social media worry that the effort is really a government “psy-op” designed to entrap them.It is a sign of the times that Americans seeking to protest the policies of their government would have such concerns. Covid mandates, January 6 prosecutions, and the Canadian government’s draconian response to the trucker protest of 2021 are fresh memories. “I am tired of seeing the flag of Palestine in our streets, but people are afraid to raise the American flag,” Ms. Roberts says. “We live here, we aren’t looking to cause trouble. We just want people to pay attention.”The group is working with law enforcement on the ground in each state, teams of lawyers, and online monitors who are scouring social media for signs that the event might be breached by those trying to paint participants as radicals or disrupt it in any way. Another steering committee member who spoke on the January 19 call, Robert Agee, says the group plans to move ahead “as long as we are doing everything in truth and in honor.” The group is raising funds through a Give Send Go account, and local business owners around the country are pitching in where they can as well.The owners of Great American Pizza and Subs at Golden Valley, Arizona, Robert and Kathleen Hall, are offering free dinner and use of their 14-acre property for overnight parking to those traveling through their convoy route. “I really don’t care what anybody calls me,” Mr. Hall says. “I stopped caring about that a long time ago. Without a secure border, we don’t have a country.”

The Cocktail Party Contrarian: Governor Abbott Isn’t the Only One Who Wants To Protect the Border

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