hree years into the border crisis, 50 Texas counties have now declared an invasion.

The latest to do so are the judges and commissioners of Bandera, Schleicher and Uvalde counties. Officials in Bandera and Schleicher counties signed nearly identical resolutions in November as Crockett County’s. Crockett County declared an invasion after its county judge’s family members were killed by an alleged human smuggler. Uvalde County officials signed their invasion resolution in July, when they also joined a coalition led by Atascosa County Judge Weston Cude.

All 50 county resolutions cite the invasion clauses of the U.S. Constitution, Articles IV, Section 4, which require the federal government to protect states from an invasion. They also cite Article IV, Section 7 of the Texas Constitution, which states the governor has the legal authority to command Texas military forces and call them up to “suppress insurrection and to repel invasions.”

They also point to the work of Gov. Greg Abbott’s border security mission, Operation Lone Star, whose officers are interdicting the “smuggling of drugs, weapons, and cartel-trafficked people into Texas,” and working to “prevent, detect, and interdict transnational criminal activity between ports of entry.” The Biden administration created the border crisis, county officials argue, with an estimated 10 million people illegally entering the country since 2021. An unprecedented 1.9 million illegal entered Texas in fiscal 2023 alone, The Center Square exclusively reported.