Texas has told federal border wall crews to stop bulldozing state land. The state's land chief issued the order and says Texas will strip cartels of their safe havens on its own terms.

Wall crews come in with graders and mulchers and they don't ask much about what's underneath the blade. State land, private ranchland, brush country that's been holding cattle for generations. The federal government runs a rough cut through it and calls it progress. Sometimes it is. Sometimes they're just moving dirt so a congressman can stand in front of a backdrop and look busy.

The order stops the bulldozers for now. According to Hoodline, the directive targets federal crews working state acreage. The land chief says Texas will go after cartel safe havens directly, on its own land, under its own authority.

Good.

Wall construction has its uses. I've said that before and I'll say it again. A barrier in the right spot slows people down, forces them into funnels where Border Patrol can actually grab them. A wall in the wrong spot is just an expensive fence that smugglers go around. And when the crews building it tear through state land without coordination, they're doing the same thing the cartels do. Treating the ground like it doesn't belong to anybody.

The land chief seems to understand the difference. You don't give cartels cover by accident and then call it infrastructure. You clear the brush. You block the trails. You deny the stash sites and you keep the pressure on. Texas has been doing more of that lately, and it works.

Anyone who thinks one order from one state official is going to fix the border hasn't spent much time on the border. The cartels adapt. They've been running this corridor for decades and they'll be running it for decades more. But you deny them ground, piece by piece, and they have to work harder for every dollar. That's the only language they understand.

The bulldozers will probably start again somewhere. They always do. But for now the state is saying you don't just run over our land because you've got a federal contract and a deadline. You coordinate. You plan. You build where it makes sense, and you don't pave over the tools we use to fight these bastards ourselves.

I'll take that. It's more than we got for a long time.