The Virus Is Surging In Texas, And Gov. Abbott Is The Reason

One of the bigger lies that Donald Trump told was that the Coronavirus would die out once the hot weather of summer arrived. It didn't.

The virus got worse last summer, and in many states, that is happening again -- especially in red states.

One of the states where the virus is surging again is Texas. It's happening because Gov. Abbott played politics with the virus instead of putting public safety first.

Now he is taking another page from the Trump playbook. He is blaming immigrants for the surge.

That is ridiculous. If Abbott wanted to see the person most responsible for the surge, all he has to do is look in the mirror.

Here is what Steve Vladeck has to say about it at MSNBC.com:

On Wednesday, Texas reported more than 10,000 new Covid-19 cases — the highest one-day total for the nation’s second-largest state since Feb. 9. On the same day, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed a new executive order that, he claimed, would help counter the surge. 

Abbott’s order restricts the “ground transportation of migrants who pose a risk of carrying COVID-19 into Texas communities” by authorizing Texas law enforcement officers to “stop any vehicle upon reasonable suspicion” of violating the executive order.

The accompanying news release did not leave the link between the two issues to readers’ imaginations: “The dramatic rise in unlawful border crossings has also led to a dramatic rise in COVID-19 cases among unlawful migrants who have made their way into our state,” Abbott was quoted as saying, “and we must do more to protect Texans from this virus and reduce the burden on our communities.”

Abbott’s executive order is, at least publicly, meant to tie Texas’s Covid surge to the Biden administration’s immigration policies. In a second release issued Thursday, Abbott was even more direct: “The current crisis at our southern border, including the overcrowding of immigration facilities and the devastating spread of COVID-19 that the influx of non-citizens is causing, is entirely the creation of the Biden Administration and its failed immigration policies.”

There are at least three problems here. First, the actual executive order that he signed doesn’t do anything like what the news release claims it does. Second, what little it does do would, if ever enforced, be equal parts unlawful and ineffective. Third, and most significantly, it’s a transparently cynical effort from Abbott to deflect attention away from his responsibility for the renewed surge of Covid cases in Texas — a state in which local governments, public schools and universities are all prohibited from imposing mask mandates or, as of Thursday, requiring vaccinations.

Simply put, if Abbott is looking for someone to blame for Texas’s latest Covid surge, it might behoove him to find a mirror.

The executive order that Abbott actually signed does not, in fact, authorize all Texas law enforcement officers to stop any individual suspected of being an undocumented immigrant carrying Covid-19 anywhere in the state. Rather, the order is directed solely at the transportation of undocumented immigrants from federal immigration facilities to shelters, hospitals and other places where they can be safely housed while their fate is determined. (That includes being moved for Covid testing.)

Indeed, the order does not prevent federal law enforcement officers themselves from moving these people from immigration facilities to other locations; it merely prevents other federal actors, or private parties, including those operating under government contracts, from doing so.

That’s a big deal for charities and other nongovernmental organizations currently assisting the Biden administration along the Texas-Mexico border. But contra the clear insinuation of Abbott’s news release, it’s not open season for racial profiling on Texas roadways.