Texas’ ‘Come and Take It’ Still Reverberates Today

October 2, 2023

Carine Martinez

Carine Martinez joined the Foundation in 2016 and is campaign director of Secure and Sovereign Texas and has been director of research and publications since 2021.

As campaign director, she oversees the Foundation’s initiative to look for additional and innovative policy solutions for the state of Texas to help secure its southern border.

As director of research and publications, she oversees and manages the publication schedules for all policy areas the Foundation is working on and is responsible for editing research publications.

Carine also conducted research on Texas–Mexico paradiplomacy, as well as, earlier on, on the effects on taxpayers and consumers of government programs that grant special privileges to certain businesses in the form of subsidies, tax credits, regulatory advantages, or other favors.

She is the co-editor of the Foundation’s Policymaker’s Guide to Corporate Welfare and is the author of several research publications, notably on film incentives, the hotel occupancy tax, and the three-tier system of alcohol distribution. She testified on these issues before the Texas Legislature during its 85th and 86th regular sessions. She was published in several newspapers including the Austin American-Statesman, The Hill, and Forbes.

Carine began working in public policy as a policy intern at the Foundation in 2014. She later worked as a policy analyst for Texas Action during the 84th Legislature and then spent a year in Washington, D.C., working as a research associate for the Charles Koch Institute.

She holds a bachelor’s degree in international business administration (completed in English, French, and Spanish) and a master’s degree in American studies from the Sorbonne in Paris, France.

Carine is originally from Paris, France, but happily moved to the United States in 2011 and finally to Texas in 2013. She became an American citizen in 2019.

Today, Texas celebrates its decision—made 188 years ago— to assert its right to self-defense. The Battle of Gonzales, in which the town refused to return to Mexico a cannon that its inhabitants had requested for “the defense of themselves and the constitution and the laws of the country,” started the Texas Revolution.

By demanding a return of the cannon, Mexico, under whose rule Texas was at the time, prevented the Texans of Gonzales from defending themselves—and the Mexican government was letting them down. So, those Texans stood firm and defended their cannon. Emblematic of the battle, the “Come and Take It Flag,” which Texans continue to revere and use to this day, is sometimes said to have been created by women.

On this anniversary, Texas is again fighting for the right to defend itself and protect its citizens. A buoy barrier installed to deter illegal entry and human smuggling and trafficking into the state and country has replaced the cannon. Texans now face both the Mexican government, from which they gained their independence during the Texas Revolution, and our own federal government, which is demanding the barrier be removed, unconcerned that the latter is for its citizens’ safety. Texans are not alone in this fight though—we are blessed to have received reinforcements from fellow Americans, currently coming from 14 states.

The Texas Public Policy Foundation continues to support Texas’ efforts to assert its sovereignty and its authority to defend the border in the face of a complete dereliction of duty from the federal government.

Today, we announce that TPPF is launching a new initiative, born out of former campaigns Secure & Sovereign Texas and Right on Immigration: Secure & Sovereign Frontier.

Secure & Sovereign Frontier—and its team of three women: Melissa Ford Maldonado, Selene Rodriguez, and Carine Martinez—believes national borders matter.

We’re holding the federal government accountable for its responsibility to secure the border and we offer additional state options to address the border crisis. In addition, to advance those two goals, the campaign highlights the reality as it is: The government of Mexico is no longer a partner to the U.S. or Texas.

Secure & Sovereign Frontier will focus its research on issues related to immigration, border security, and U.S.–Mexico relations, to:

Restore order and the rule of law at the border.
Ensure Texas’ sovereignty by targeting Mexican drug cartels and corrupt Mexican elites in Texas.
Protect Texans and Americans while enhancing the moral integrity of the Texas–Mexico relationship, which we seek to preserve.
As the consequences of current federal policies unfold throughout the United States, Texas stands for the Rule of Law and has become a shield against Mexican drug cartels—for Texas and for the country.

In the 1830s, as it became clear that Santa Anna’s governance would clash with the Anglo-Texan colonists’ deeply held principles inherited from the founding of the United States, Stephen F. Austin understood it was time for Texas to prepare to defend itself. In his Lone Star: A History of Texas and the Texans, historian T. R. Fehrenbach recounts Austin’s plan to foster armed American immigration to Texas as reinforcement to face Santa Anna and his army, and Fehrenbach to conclude: “What was at stake was more than mere boundaries.”

What is at stake today is more than borders and buoys. It is the sovereignty states possess to defend their borders and citizens and the conservation of the Rule of Law. Secure & Sovereign Frontier is committed to their defense.

Carine Martinez

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