Saturday, 16 November 2024

Texas Scores Court Victory Against Biden Administration Over Border Barrier, Attorney General Announces

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The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit vacated an injunction that ordered Texas to remove floating barriers deployed in the Rio Grande last year to deter illegal immigrants from entering the country.

“The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled in Texas’s favor, finding that the federal district court abused its discretion when it ordered Texas to remove the buoys floating in the Rio Grande that prevent aliens from attempting a dangerous river crossing to enter America illegally,” Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said.

“The buoys can remain in the river. I will continue to defend Texas’s right to protect its border from illegal immigration!” he added.

Per Ken Paxton:

In 2023, Texas deployed the buoys to address the historic levels of aliens attempting illegal, dangerous—and in some cases, deadly—river crossings. The Biden Administration then sued and demanded Texas remove the buoys and reopen the border. A federal district court granted the Biden Administration a preliminary injunction and ordered the buoys to be removed and a Fifth Circuit panel issued a split decision upholding the order. However, in January 2024, Attorney General Paxton secured an en banc rehearing before the Fifth Circuit.

The full court has now ruled that the district court’s flawed preliminary injunction misapplied the law and was an abuse of the lower court’s authority. The buoy barrier can remain in the river while proceedings continue at the district court level.

WATCH:

The Texas Tribune reports:

The lawsuit will soon be argued in district court, which will rule on the merits of the federal government’s claims.

Texas began deploying chains of specially designed buoys down the middle of the Rio Grande near Eagle Pass to deter migrants from crossing illegally in June 2023, sparking protests from migrant activists and from the Mexican government. The barrier was rolled out as part of Operation Lone Star, Gov. Greg Abbott’s multibillion dollar effort to counter illegal immigration along the 1,200-mile southern border.

Texas spent $850,000 on the barrier, which is made up of a 1,000-foot-long string of buoys separated by saw blades supporting a submerged mesh net.

In July 2023, the U.S. Justice Department sued Texas in an Austin federal court, arguing that the barrier was a safety hazard that violates international treaties, harms relations with Mexico and was installed without necessary authorization from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which regulates activities in waterways and wetlands under federal law.

Because Texas installed the barrier “without seeking the Corps’ authorization, the Corps and other relevant federal agencies were deprived of the opportunity to evaluate risks the barrier poses to public safety and the environment, mitigate those risks as necessary through the permitting process, and otherwise evaluate whether the project is in the public interest,” the federal government’s lawsuit said.

“The Federal Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit just ruled that Texas can KEEP these buoys in the water securing our border. Biden tried to remove them. I fought to keep them in the water. That is exactly where they will stay,” Texas Gov. Greg Abbott commented.


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