Elizabeth Jo

So it was only covering a small portion.

Well, Governor Abbott relied in part on Article 4's protection clause, that the federal government had a responsibility to protect the state from invasion.

And the federal government wasn't fulfilling its obligations.

This is during the Biden administration.

Of course, there's a huge problem with Abbott's argument.

Texas isn't actually being invaded by anybody.

So as soon as Texas implemented this barrier of floating buoys, the federal government actually sued Texas in federal court over this.

But what happened actually is that the Biden administration did not actually –

engage with the constitutional argument.

And instead they said that Texas was violating federal law about river control, navigable waters.

And the case is still ongoing.

I think you can kind of imagine why they didn't want to engage with the constitutional argument.

I mean, they did not want this to be answered in any way by the Supreme Court.

You know, the possibility that a majority on the court might say something like, well, actually, maybe Texas can defend itself because I, you know, do you really want to live in a world where each state gets to decide that they're invaded and engage in some kind of self-defensive acts?

Right.

Yeah, it's sort of a free-floating metaphor for terrorizing people.

And then there is Trump 2.0, right?

And it turns out that President Trump has used a kind of novel reading of Article 4.

On January 20th of 2025, President Trump issued a proclamation called Guaranteeing the State's Protection Against Invasion.

And in that proclamation, Trump declared the suspension of what the proclamation calls aliens engaged in the invasion across the southern border.