A leading Texas secessionist has claimed that the Lone Star State’s break away from the Union — a movement dubbed “Texit” — “could absolutely be closer than we think” amid Gov. Greg Abbott’s battle with the federal government over control of the border with Mexico.
“We’re at a point where Texit is on everyone’s mind, both those for it and those against it,” Daniel Miller, the president of the Texas Nationalist Movement said on Tuesday’s episode of his “Texas News” podcast.
“The border issue has become at the forefront of the news cycle and Texit has become the natural logical extension of what’s happening down on the border,” he said.
“We’re in the throes of getting what we’ve always talked about, which is a binding vote — a vote on Texas becoming a self-governing independent nation,” Miller continued.
He went on to praise Abbott for declaring that the Lone Star State’s right to self-defense “supersedes any federal statutes to the contrary” and his refusal to remove a razor-wire barrier, despite the US Supreme Court ruling that it was unconstitutional.
The Republican governor argued that because the federal government has failed to safeguard Texas from an invasion of migrants crossing the border, the state has the “constitutional authority to defend” itself.
Miller echoed those sentiments in his podcast on Tuesday.
“Every time Texas tries to do something to secure the border, the federal government comes in and interferes; or they’ve previously rendered the Texas efforts so neutered as to basically have Texans — the Texas military department and the department of public safety — operating as auxiliaries for the border patrol, who are under orders to let them [migrants] across, process them, put them on buses and planes and ship them everywhere,” he said.
Miller said he is confident that more residents would vote “yes” in a poll about whether the state should secede, he told Newsweek.
He also suggested in his podcast that the battle over the border may prompt other states to consider secession, pointing out that 25 Republican governors have signed a letter supporting Abbott.
“Does that mean then that we’re going to see the spinning off of not just Texas, but of the remaining states, of those other 25, and what does that mean for the Union?” Miller posited to his listeners.
“It’s interesting times we live in folks,” he said. “And I think that we’re heading to a place where there is beyond a constitutional crisis.”
But Miller’s remarks come just weeks after the Texas Supreme Court declined to hear a case brought by the separatist group after the state GOP turned down its petition to include a vote on the state’s independence on an upcoming ballot.
Members of the Texas State Supreme Court did not give a reason for their decision, but the Republican Party claimed that the group’s petition was not submitted in a timely manner, and the 139,000 signatures were not valid because they were made electronically, according to The Independent.
An attorney representing the group said at the time, “The establishment won today, but we are not going away.”
The Post has reached out to Abbott’s office for comment.
