JACKSON — Mississippi House of Representatives is off to a busy start Wednesday. Lincoln County Rep. Vince Mangold joins 35 legislators who co authored a house resolution to stand with Texas. Rep. Becky Currie is not listed as a co-author on the legislation which was introduced Wednesday morning. 

The resolution expresses Mississippi’s support of Texas Governor Greg Abbott and his efforts to restore and maintain the sovereignty of Texas and the integrity of the Mexico border. Abbott has directed the transport of non-citizens from Texas into Mexico after they had crossed the border illegally. The United States government and Texas’s State Government are at odds over whose jurisdiction the border falls under. 

House Resolution 17 compares the current border crisis in Texas to Operation Overlord, where 156,000 Allied Troops invaded the beaches of Normandy on June 6, 1944 to liberate Europe from Nazis commonly referred to as D-Day. HR 17 states the state of Texas has been invaded at the same rate as D-Day over the course of a month over the last 18 months. 

The resolution alleges the US Government has violated their constitutional duty to protect the state from invasion under the guarantee clause in Article IV, Section 4. It further states the founding fathers left a remedy for a state’s government to act when the federal government did not under Article I, Section 10 Clause 3. House Resolution 17 supports Texas’s declaration of invasion and thus actions to protect itself. 

“We believe that Governor Abbott’s actions must be implemented in order to extinguish the worldwide incentive for millions of undocumented noncitizens to continue to gain illegal access to the United States via Texas,” HR 17 states. “It is most appropriate to support our other state’s efforts to maintain its border and sovereignty. We fully stand in support of our brothers and sisters in the State of Texas in their struggle on the front lines of this invasion.”

The resolution was referred to the Rules house committee.

Check back for more updates from Mississippi’s 2024 Legislative Session.