S03E16 – Greg Abbot Defies the Feds, Trump Kills Immigration Reform, and a Senate Candidate

In this episode of Finding Common Battle Grounds, Ryan and Tom are joined by Sarah Sun Liew, a Republican candidate for US Senate for California. We discuss two articles related to immigration. First, we examine Governor Greg Abbott’s violation of federal law in putting up barriers (i.e., razor wire, sawblades, etc.) at the US/Mexico border. We all agree that there are issues with immigration and the border but are rather conflicted over whether what Governor Abbott is doing is ethical and how the federal government should respond. The second article we discuss is about the bipartisan effort to fix the border situation (which also included funding for Ukraine and Israel) that was being discussed in early February but was killed when Donald Trump began contacting legislators and telling them he opposed the legislation because it was the primary plank of his platform for re-election as President. Tom and Sarah both claimed that the reporter was biased and that Trump doesn’t have that much power. They also argued that President Biden should have done more to get the legislation passed. Ryan disagreed with them, noting that the legislation was generally supported by legislators and many conservatives and was not well-liked by people on the left. The legislation seemed to be popular until Trump came out against it. Ryan suggests that the authoritarian nature of Republicans right now means that they are unwilling to go against the leader/dictator of the Republican Party – Donald Trump. Even so, all three agreed that the border reforms that were being considered should have been passed by the US Legislature.