Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has sued key officials in the administration of President Joe Biden in response to federal agents reportedly sabotaging wire barriers installed by Texas to deter unlawful migration.
In a press release received by The Dallas Express, the Office of the Attorney General denounced “the federal government’s practice of cutting and destroying Texas’s concertina wire that was strategically positioned for the purpose of securing the state’s border with Mexico and stemming the flow of illegal migration.”
“Texas has the sovereign right to construct border barriers to prevent the entry of illegal aliens,” Paxton asserted. “Americans across the country were horrified to watch Biden’s open-border policy in action: agents were physically cutting wires and assisting the aliens’ entry into our state.”
“This is illegal. It puts our country and our citizens at risk,” he suggested. “The courts must put a stop to it, or Biden’s free-for-all will make this crushing immigration crisis even worse.”
The lawsuit specifically names Secretary of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Troy Miller, U.S. Border Patrol Chief Jason Owens, and Juan Bernal, acting chief patrol agent for the Del Rio Sector.
“In the midst of an unprecedented immigration crisis at the southern border, federal government officials are, once again, undermining Texas’s efforts to stem the flow of illegal immigration,” the filing alleges.
“Federal agents have developed and implemented a policy, pattern, or practice of destroying Texas’s concertina wire to encourage and assist thousands of aliens to illegally cross the Rio Grande and enter Texas,” the lawsuit adds.
NBC 5 DFW reported that federal agents have cut through the wire to get to unlawful migrants who have become entangled in it or trapped in the Rio Grande, sometimes for extended periods of time.
“By cutting Texas’s concertina wire, the federal government has not only illegally destroyed property owned by the State of Texas,” the OAG asserts, “it has also disrupted the State’s border security efforts, leaving gaps in Texas’s border barriers and damaging Texas’s ability to effectively deter illegal entry into its territory.”
The lawsuit represents the latest step in the escalating conflict between the state and federal government over border security.
As reported by The Dallas Express, Gov. Greg Abbott recently declared, “We literally are at war with the White House, fighting to secure our own border.”
In addition to cutting concertina wire, the Biden administration sued Abbott earlier this year for deploying buoys on the Rio Grande to deter migrants from unlawfully crossing at certain locations. Currently, a federal court has allowed the buoys to remain in place during litigation, and Abbott has promised to take the case all the way up to the Supreme Court if necessary.
Despite Texas’ claims, the Biden administration maintains that it has been hard at work addressing border concerns.
White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre recently said, “Look, the president has done what he can from here, from the federal government, from the White House to put forth and manage our border in a safe and humane way to respect the dignity of every human, as he says all the time, and making sure that our communities are safe.”
“The president has done more to secure the border and to deal with this issue of immigration than anybody else,” she claimed. “He really has.”