The floating marine barriers along the Rio Grande will be allowed to remain in place indefinitely after a federal court of appeals paused a lower court’s ruling on Thursday that had directed Texas to remove them.
Texas appealed the previous ruling that said the buoys must be removed from the middle of the river and received an administrative stay from the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, according to CBS News Texas.
The most recent ruling overrides Wednesday’s decision by U.S. District Judge David Ezra, who issued a preliminary injunction that required Texas to move the buoys to the riverbank by September 15, as previously reported by The Dallas Express.
In response to Ezra’s earlier ruling, Gov. Greg Abbott released a statement saying that the “court decision merely prolongs President Biden’s willful refusal to acknowledge that Texas is rightfully stepping up to do the job that he should have been doing all along.”
“This ruling is incorrect and will be overturned on appeal,” the governor predicted. “We will continue to utilize every strategy to secure the border, including deploying Texas National Guard soldiers and Department of Public Safety troopers and installing strategic barriers.”
Each of the recent court decisions stems from an ongoing lawsuit between the Department of Justice and Texas, in which the DOJ alleges that Texas “flouted federal law by installing a barrier in the Rio Grande without obtaining the required federal authorization.”
“This floating barrier poses threats to navigation and public safety and presents humanitarian concerns. Additionally, the presence of the floating barrier has prompted diplomatic protests by Mexico and risks damaging U.S. foreign policy,” said Associate Attorney General Vanita Gupta, as previously reported by The Dallas Express.
Despite the lawsuit, Abbott has remained steadfast in his stance that “Texas has the sovereign authority to defend [its] border.”
“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,” Abbott wrote in a letter to President Joe Biden back in July.
