The state of Texas and the Border Patrol are at odds over the enforcement of U,S, immigration law, and the Biden Administration is asking the Supreme Court to settle the question.
The issue is which governmental entity is responsible for the protection of the border. By law, the federal government is responsible for protecting the border. But what if the federal government is derelict in discharging those responsibilities? Texas Governor Greg Abbott says he has a prima facie case that the feds are not enforcing immigration law. The evidence of 3 million illegal aliens being allowed into the United States without proper documentation is plain enough.
Texas has been busy passing laws that propose to do the job that the Border Patrol is being prevented from doing by the Biden administration. Some of the most recent attempts by Governor Greg Abbott to slow the flow of illegals crossing into Texas were to authorize Texas law enforcement to arrest illegals at the border and to order the state to carve out a healthy slice of the border where the writ of federal law does not run.
Abbott has ordered a nearly 50-acre public park along the Rio Grande in Eagle Pass, which was a crossing point for thousands of migrants entering from Mexico, to be fenced off.
Along one stretch, armed Texas National Guard members and their vehicles are preventing Border Patrol agents from accessing the river, the Justice Department said in court filing. The Texas National Guard also allegedly used a military Humvee to keep Border Patrol agents off an access road.
“Because Border Patrol can no longer access or view this stretch of the border, Texas has effectively prevented Border Patrol from monitoring the border,” the Justice Department wrote in a filing.
Abbott told reporters that Texas has the authority to control access to any geographic location in the state.
“That authority is being asserted,” Abbott said.
Denying the Border Patrol access to a few acres around Eagle Pass isn't going to do much to slow the flow of illegals crossing the Texas border. If they can't cross at Eagle Pass, they'll be told by their coyotes to cross somewhere else.
What matters here is the Constitutional principle. The federal government is OK with millions of undocumented migrants crossing into the United States with near-non-existent vetting. Texas is not OK with that and is challenging the government's policy of non-enforcement.
It's a novel legal theory. Unfortunately, the Supreme Court frowns on novel legal theories so Texas is not likely to prevail. But Abbott. most assuredly, isn't going to give up.
“The only thing that we’re not doing is we’re not shooting people who come across the border because of course the Biden administration would charge us with murder,” he said as he discussed a New York City lawsuit against charter bus companies that he has used to transport migrants from Texas.
Naturally, the left became hysterical and accused Abbott of wanting to murder illegals.
On Friday, Abbott said he was making a distinction of what Texas can and cannot do on the border. “I was asked to point out where the line is drawn about what would be illegal and I pointed out something that is obviously illegal,” he said.
Texas notified the Eagle Pass government on Wednesday that the Department of Public Safety would be closing public access to Shelby Park.
Concern grew when Border Patrol noted it, too, lost access to the park, which agents use to launch boats into the Rio Grande. The area also served as a staging area where federal officers would take migrants into custody and process them. The Border Patrol’s access to the site for surveillance was similarly curtailed.
The National Border Patrol Council, the Border Patrol's union, praised the state's actions.
“By taking control of an area where so many illegal aliens are simply surrendering, he’s freeing up BP agents to patrol areas with high numbers of illegal aliens who attempt to escape arrest,” the union said in a message on X.
We can't have that sort of law enforcement at the border, Biden says. Illegal aliens are people and to treat them like criminals is just so...so...mean.
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