The Biden administration has appealed to the US Supreme Court, seeking to restore federal jurisdiction over the international border between Mexico and Texas.
This move is aimed at enabling Border Patrol agents to dismantle razor wire barriers erected by Texas officials along the US-Mexico border to deter illegal immigrants.
Previously, Texas officials had successfully persuaded a lower court to prevent the Border Patrol from removing the razor wire that the state had installed along a 29-mile stretch of the Rio Grande.
US Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar, in a court filing, contended that Congress had endowed the Border Patrol with significant authority to enforce immigration law within 25 miles of the border. She argued that state governments lack the power to override the authority that the Constitution grants to the federal government. "Texas's barriers in Eagle Pass impede agents' ability to apprehend and inspect migrants under federal law," she stated.
Prelogar further noted that Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas possesses "the power and duty to control and guard the boundaries" of the US.
In a counter-response, Texas Republican Governor Greg Abbott declared, Americans & courts will reject Bidens hostility to immigration laws. He pledged to continue deploying the National Guard to build border barriers & repel illegal immigrants, and defiantly added, See you in court.
Last month, the Fifth Circuit instructed Texas to dismantle a 1,000-foot floating barrier that had been positioned in the Rio Grande near Eagle Pass, following a surge in the number of illegal immigrants crossing the US-Mexico border.
In the same month, Governor Abbott enacted a law empowering state authorities to arrest and deport illegal immigrants apprehended crossing the border outside designated ports of entry. As reported by the Houston Chronicle, the American Civil Liberties Union and the Texas Civil Rights Project have initiated legal proceedings to challenge the constitutionality of this new law. The Biden administration's Justice Department has indicated its intention to join this legal challenge.
Login