In the waning days of January, Texas governor Greg Abbott invoked his state’s “constitutional authority to defend itself” in an ongoing dispute with the Biden Administration over control of a park on the United States-Mexico border.

Shelby Park in Eagle Pass, Texas, has become the epicenter of the nation’s so-called migrant crisis, which has seen more than 6 million migrant encounters on the southern border since Joe Biden took office three years ago. The 47-acre public park, which includes walking trails, baseball diamonds, and a golf course, borders the Rio Grande and is a major point of entry for migrants illegally crossing into the United States from Mexico. After weeks of wrangling between the State of Texas and the Department of Homeland Security, Texas officials finally sealed off the area from US Border Patrol and continued to install concertina wire amid protests from the White House and the US Supreme Court. Defending his actions in a recent statement, Governor Abbott declared:

“The federal government has broken the compact between the United States and the States. The Executive Branch of the United States has a constitutional duty to enforce federal laws protecting States including immigration laws on the books right now. President Biden has refused to enforce those laws and has even violated them… James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and other visionaries who wrote the US Constitution foresaw that States should not be left to the mercy of a lawless president who does nothing to stop external threats… For these reasons, I have already declared an invasion under Article I, § 10, Clause 3 to invoke Texas’s constitutional authority to defend and protect itself. That authority is the supreme law of the land and supersedes any federal statutes to the contrary…”

The governor’s statement quickly circulated across social media, with more than 25 Republican governors voicing their support and commentators across the political divide predicting another “constitutional crisis.”