Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is refusing to comply with demands from the Department of Justice to take down deterrents placed along the southern in an effort to stem the flow of unlawful migration.
As reported by The Dallas Express, when the administration of President Joe Biden demanded Abbott take down a system of buoys placed in the Rio Grande, Abbott refused, claiming, “Texas has the sovereign authority to defend our border.”
The DOJ gave Abbott until 1 p.m. Central Time Monday to indicate “your commitment to expeditiously remove the floating barrier” otherwise “the United States intends to file legal action.”
On Monday morning, however, Abbott sent his answer to President Biden, saying, “Texas will see you in court, Mr. President.”
Abbott, who is a lawyer and has served as Texas’ attorney general as well as on the state’s Supreme Court, laid out the legal grounds for his decision, further telling the president, “Your ongoing violation of Article IV, §4 of the U.S. Constitution has left me no other choice.”
“The fact is, if you would just enforce the immigration laws Congress already has on the books, America would not be suffering from your record-breaking level of illegal immigration,” the Texas governor continued.
“While I share the humanitarian concerns noted in your lawyers’ letter, Mr. President, your finger points in the wrong direction. Neither of us wants to see another death in the Rio Grande River,” Abbott claimed. “Yet your open-border policies encourage migrants to risk their lives by crossing illegally through the water, instead of safely and legally at a port of entry.
“Nobody drowns on a bridge.”
“If you truly care about human life, you must begin enforcing federal immigration law. By doing so, you can help me stop migrants from wagering their lives in the waters of the Rio Grande,” the letter reads. “You can also help me save Texans, and indeed all Americans, from deadly drugs like fentanyl, cartel violence, and the horrors of human trafficking.”
Former Sen. Don Huffines, who challenged Abbott in the GOP governor’s primary, applauded the stand his opponent had taken, saying, “This is Texas. We do not bend the knee to the Feds.”
Similarly, Rep. Brian Harrison (R-Midlothian) explained, “Biden is fighting Texas harder than the cartels and human smugglers his policies have empowered.”
“He’s allowing migrants on the terror watch list to break immigration laws, but wants to prosecute brave Texans risking their lives to enforce them,” he added, thanking the governor for his stand.
Others, however, denounced Abbott’s response.
Crash Lewin wrote on social media, “The actions of Texas are frivolous. For a couple hundred years, states could not block navigable waterways without approval. It is clearly illegal. It is too bad that rather than work on a problem, the governor goes for meaningless and futile stunts.”
Likewise, Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, policy director for the American Immigration Council, asserted, “The US Constitution does not give states the authority to carry out immigration enforcement at the border. Period. Nothing in the Constitution says anything like that, which is probably why the Biden administration has ignored any letters claiming otherwise.”