In 1844, Oscar Brackett left Salina, New York, for the climes of south Texas. In 1852, Brackett established a trading post on the Texas border that would ultimately bear his name: Brackettville.
This original connection would have been forgotten except for President Joe Biden’s catastrophic border policy and its disastrous effect on the citizens of Bracketville, who have become a symbol of strength, resilience, and determination.
Today, Bracketville and Salina, nearly 2,000 miles apart, are reconnected by shared adversity.
Brackettville has exposed the perils of an open border, including unidentified and untreated diseases; labor and sex trafficking; drug smuggling; the influx of young, strong, military-age males affiliated with Mexican drug cartels; and the faux family units disguising human trafficking. Late-night encounters on south Texas ranches are peeling back the veneer of “I’m just looking for a better life,” revealing the true nature of those between-border checkpoints: felons skirting the law while transporting children, women, drugs, and more.
Pleas for help from border communities of every size have gone unheeded by Washington elites who have chosen virtue signaling over duty to the country.
Border residents endure the scorn of the uninformed, who wrongfully label them racists, bigots, and xenophobes while ignoring the inconvenient truth that many on the border have extended family on both sides of the Rio Grande.
Across the southern border, the stories repeat. Homes and property are destroyed. Emergency and essential civil services are overwhelmed. Citizens are threatened on roads and in their homes. All along the border, citizens and illegal immigrants have lost their lives. Very public and continued requests for help have elicited no meaningful response from Washington and continued scorn from the “enlightened” left.
Left to fend for themselves, the people of Brackettville did just that. The surge in criminal activity and general lawlessness left local officials little choice but to do what still seems unthinkable to the Washington political classes.
Brackettville declared a disaster and made clear what should have been obvious—they were being invaded.
Local officials creatively applied every lawful tool available to restore order and protect life. Other counties followed, and the population was energized across the state, almost on a par with 1836. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott implemented a state response to the invasion calculated to protect Texas while intentionally drawing the ire of the coastal elites safely ensconced in gated communities and private enclaves and insulated from the challenges and dangers facing the people living in the grittier, crueler real world.
Those seeking to evade federal authorities, whether because of criminal intent or history, affiliation with terror groups, or the transportation of illicit drugs into the United States, were thwarted to some degree by the measures taken. Children and women were rescued from abuse and servitude. Fentanyl, methamphetamine, cocaine, and heroin were seized. Cartel operatives, drug mules, and coyotes were arrested.
Small, scattered successes, however, don’t equal victory.
The now famous border buoys, a mere 1,000-foot barrier along the Texas border stretching almost 1,250 miles placed where a man can easily stand in the knee-deep water, hold promise for political reasons more than physical reasons.
The furor over the buoys forced the Biden administration to show its true colors.
The Biden administration is on precarious ground in the appellate courts and the court of public opinion. Many hope the court battle will yield an ultimate victory for border security. But will that victory come too late, if it comes at all? The harm already done is vast and probably irreparable. It isn’t unreasonable to expect another year or two of a porous border to do exponentially more harm.
Yet of all the measures taken by Texas, such as razor wire barriers, increased law enforcement, the campaign to intercept and prosecute trespassers on private lands, enhanced border inspections, and the buoy installation that triggered the left’s pearl-clutching, Texas has proven that the most effective and timely tool is a bus full of illegal immigrants and a press release.
And let’s be clear: Contrary to reports in the outrage media, Texas has only sent a tiny fraction of its invaders to New York, Chicago, D.C., or California. The Biden administration has sent many tens of thousands more, so many that New York Mayor Eric Adams declared the surge in his sanctuary city unsustainable. Mr. Adams wants to share his challenge with neighboring communities such as Salina. No one should be surprised that Salina, like its distant Texas cousin, says “no.”
No community in the United States can afford the skyrocketing costs associated with the legions of illegal immigrants welcomed by Biden.
Schools seeking to educate an exploding population of people who don’t speak English face insurmountable challenges with limited physical and financial resources. Public health suffers as it battles diseases thought eradicated or controlled with uncompensated care that’s spiraling out of control. Social services are overtaxed. Crime is on overdrive, and fentanyl poisonings and other preventable drug-related deaths are escalating. In a depressed economy, job competition worsens.
There is, however, a glimmer of hope in this storm.
From Brackettville to Salina, more and more Americans from all walks of life, all income levels, and all ethnicities are galvanizing together and pushing back against the Biden administration’s dereliction of duty. Just as Americans once flocked to Texas to forge a new nation, Americans must now unite to support the simple demands made by the men and women of towns such as Brackettville and Salina: Enforce the law, obey the Constitution, protect our nation, and secure our borders.
Or, left to fend for themselves, Americans will do just that.
