Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has an immigration plan. Does Joe Biden? | Opinion

In his famous book “Rules for Radicals,” far-left author Saul Alinsky gave his readers good advice on using your enemy’s strengths against them. Among his rules is to make your enemies abide by their own standards. It is clear that Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has read and learned.

For decades, local liberal politicians have posed as champions of the little guy by declaring megalopolises and college towns alike as “sanctuary cities,” where people who break America’s immigration laws are given a warm welcome and the nefarious agents of ICE — Immigration and Customs Enforcement — are given the cold shoulder.

Now, as migrants flood across America’s inconsistently controlled border with Mexico, Alinsky acolyte Abbott is making them pay. Busing immigrants by the thousands to sanctuary cities from coast to coast — Los Angeles, Denver, Chicago and New York among them — Abbott is forcing mayors to face the costs of their slogans and show their true colors.

As cities struggle with the costs of dealing with the tide that have grown into the billions of dollars, Missouri and Kansas have largely been passed by, due to some far-sighted policies implemented by Republicans, in Missouri more than a decade ago and in Kansas in 2022. Both states have restricted localities from naming themselves sanctuary cities.

New York Mayor Eric Adams has taken the largest fall, going from defender of the downtrodden to turning the act of bringing someone who’s broken our immigration laws into New York into a crime — for which bus drivers face three months in jail, and bus companies face fines and the confiscation of their buses. Nevertheless, the buses keep coming, though now they are dropping their human cargo off in New Jersey, where local officials try to help them quickly get to New York City where, by law, they must be given housing and support.

Chicago has tried the same game, only to find the immigrants dropped off in the suburbs where they walk into the city. Denver is cracking under the pressure as it says 10% of the city’s budget will be spent on immigrants this year.

The perfectly reasonable goal of all this was to make President Joe Biden’s political allies feel the costs of mass illegal immigration so they would pressure the Biden administration to do something. When the costs fell only on benighted border states, it was easy for Washington, D.C., Democrats to ignore.

But now what? As Nikki Haley says, these immigrants are not out to cause us trouble. They are — like the millions of Americans who came here before them — just looking for a better life.

Democrats’ vague promises of making things better in immigrants’ home countries have come to naught. Pressuring the Mexicans to control their own borders has done little. Indeed, Mexico is losing control of its own country to gangs. Migrants are often victims of the lawlessness.

Just this weekend, more than 30 migrants were kidnapped off a bus on the Mexican side of the border by gang members most likely looking to hold them for ransom. Smaller kidnappings are common.

Donald Trump clearly has a plan to tighten down the border no matter what it takes. Any Republican who hopes to take him on will need to have a better one, hopefully, that combines tough law enforcement with traditional American compassion for those only trying to better their lives.

And if Biden hopes to remain president after November’s election, he had better come up with a plan and implement it with alacrity. Suing Texas for its efforts to enforce the law without a plan to do any better makes Biden look like a failure. He’s been president for three years and it is fair to judge him by the state of the border — and by the buses full of desperate people arriving all over the country.

David Mastio, a former editor and columnist for USA Today, is a regional editor for The Center Square and a regular Star Opinion correspondent.