WASHINGTON — The Justice Department asked the Supreme Court for an emergency ruling Tuesday to let federal agents resume cutting razor wire Texas has installed along the U.S.-Mexico border.
“Texas’s placement of the wire near the riverbank in Eagle Pass has proved particularly problematic for Border Patrol agents,” the government told the high court. “By preventing Border Patrol agents from reaching noncitizens who have already entered the United States, Texas’s barriers in Eagle Pass impede agents’ ability to apprehend and inspect migrants under federal law.”
Gov. Greg Abbott accused President Joe Biden of flouting immigration enforcement with the latest legal maneuver.
“Biden begs SCOTUS [the Supreme Court of the United States] to let him cut razor wire Texas installed on border. See you in court,” the governor posted on X. “Americans and courts will reject Biden’s hostility to immigration laws. Texas will continue to deploy National Guard to build border barriers and repel illegal immigrants.”
On Dec. 19, a federal appeals court ordered the Border Patrol to stop cutting the wire except in an emergency, a major win for Texas officials in one of their many legal skirmishes with the Biden administration over border security.
Under Abbott’s $10 billion Operation Lone Star, the state has deployed massive resources, including National Guard and state police, to address a border crisis that Republicans blame on lax enforcement by President Joe Biden.
On Dec. 1, a different three-judge panel of the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ordered removal of a 1,000-foot buoy barrier the state installed near Eagle Pass to block migrants from crossing the river. That was a major win for the Biden administration.
Texas has asked the 5th Circuit to take another look at the buoys case. Abbott has said he hopes the Supreme Court uses the case to give states broad authority over immigration enforcement and border security.
On the razor wire, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued the Department of Homeland Security and accused its agents of illegally destroying state property.
On Oct. 30, federal Judge Alia Moses of the Western District of Texas issued a temporary order barring Border Patrol agents from destroying, damaging or removing the razor wire that Texas has installed along the border, except in an emergency.
The ruling applied to 29 miles of wire installed in Maverick County, which includes Eagle Pass, where tens of thousands of migrants have arrived on a weekly basis in recent months.
The judge found that, as Texas asserted, Border Patrol sometimes cuts the concertina wire “for no apparent purpose other than to allow migrants easier entrance further inland.”
A month later, the judge issued a new order — this time siding with the Biden administration and agreeing federal authority preempts state authority at the border.
The appeals court’s ruling Dec. 19 focused mostly on whether the state has the right to sue the federal government in this case. It does, the judges said.
The ruling also suggested that, rather than impeding federal law enforcement, Texas’ actions supplement it. There is “substantial public interest in having governmental agencies abide by the federal laws that govern their existence and operations,” the court wrote, citing an earlier case.
Texas and federal authorities agree that the concertina wire must be cut in case of emergency — to save a migrant from drowning, for instance, or when officers witness an assault on the far side.
But state officials assert that federal agents have removed concertina wire simply to let migrants enter the United States more easily.
This story, originally published in The Dallas Morning News, is reprinted as part of a collaborative partnership between The Dallas Morning News and Texas Metro News. The partnership seeks to boost coverage of Dallas’ communities of color, particularly in southern Dallas.
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