The Supreme Court of the United States found in favor of the Biden administration on Monday, seemingly ruling in a split decision that federal agents are entitled to access to the southern border and allowed to cut border wire deployed by Texas.
This ruling vacates the injunction issued by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals that barred federal agents from “damaging Texas’s wire fences while the U.S. Department of Justice prepares a response to Texas’s motion for an injunction pending appeal of the district court’s order.”
SCOTUS voted 5-4 to vacate the injunction, with Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, and Brett Kavanaugh dissenting. The high court’s order did not provide a rationale for the majority’s ruling, according to The Texas Tribune.
It is currently unclear what could come next as state and federal authorities on the ground in Eagle Pass remain at an impasse following Texas’ seizure of river-front city property, which has, for the most part, denied federal agents access to the border around Shelby Park. Texas troopers and members of the Texas Military Department have allegedly expressed a willingness to face arrest “if it comes to that,” as previously reported by The Dallas Express.
Texas Department of Public Safety spokesperson Lt. Chris Olivarez took to social media Monday evening, writing:
“The State of Texas, under [Gov. Greg Abbott]’s Operation Lone Star, will maintain its current posture in deterring illegal border crossings by utilizing effective border security measures — reinforced concertina wire & anti-climb barriers along the Rio Grande. The logical concern should be why the Federal Government continues to hinder Texas’ ability to protect its border, all while allowing for the exploitation, dangerous, & inhumane methods of permitting illegal immigrants, including children, to illegally cross a dangerous river where many have lost their lives.”
While Olivarez did not explicitly comment on the current situation in Eagle Pass, he added:
“Texas is the only state using every strategy & resource to protect its sovereignty, combat criminal activity, & discourage illegal immigration. #Texas will continue to hold the line.”
A spokesperson for Abbott also did not directly address the situation in Eagle Pass but said that the “absence of razor wire and other deterrence strategies encourages migrants to make unsafe and illegal crossings between ports of entry.” He went on to say the governor “will continue fighting to defend Texas’ property and its constitutional authority to secure the border,” according to CNN.
Monday’s ruling came shortly after the Biden administration filed an emergency appeal asking SCOTUS to vacate the lower court’s decision, claiming the injunction “would leave the United States at the mercy of states that could seek to force the federal government to conform the implementation of federal immigration law to varying state-law regimes.”
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott responded to the emergency appeal by claiming that “Americans & courts will reject Biden’s hostility to immigration laws.”
This ongoing legal battle revolves around allegations that federal agents were cutting Texas’ border wire in an attempt to allow unlawful migrants into the country, prompting Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton to file a lawsuit against officials within the Biden administration.
Paxton referenced the “unprecedented immigration crisis at the southern border” as the reason for the deployment of border wire, further stating that federal law enforcement officials are “undermining Texas’s efforts to stem the flow of illegal immigration.”
The crisis at the southern border has reached a fever pitch as an ongoing surge of unlawful migrants continues to undermine border security, with U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) reporting record-high encounters.
CBP recently confirmed that there were more than 300,000 encounters with unlawful migrants at the southern border in December, which broke the previous monthly record of 269,735 encounters in September.
In addition to deploying concertina wire along the border, Abbott has taken various other measures to manage the crisis.
Texas is also involved in a legal battle with the federal government over the floating barriers that were placed in the Rio Grande to deter unlawful migrants.
The U.S. Department of Justice has alleged that Texas “flouted federal law by installing a barrier in the Rio Grande,” citing the Rivers and Harbors Act of 1899, which requires federal authorization for such actions in navigable waters.
Paxton recently secured an en banc rehearing by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. This temporarily voids a split decision arrived at by the court that determined the buoys were an “obstruction” to the navigable waterway and must be removed.
Legal battles between the two sides led Abbott to say in October 2023 that Texas officials “literally are at war with the White House, fighting to secure our own border,” as previously reported by The Dallas Express.
Despite the claims made by Abbott, a White House statement attributed to President Joe Biden defended the federal government’s actions by claiming that the “current immigration system is a relic of the past, leaving a difficult challenge without easy solutions.”
“I am doing everything in my power to take steps to manage the border in a safe, orderly, and humane manner while honoring the promise of America that has led generations of immigrants to become part of our Nation’s fabric,” said Biden in a previous statement sent to The Dallas Express.