The Biden administration asked the Supreme Court on Tuesday to lift an injunction imposed by an appeals court that allows Texas to keep wire barriers at the southern border, arguing the barriers inhibit Border Patrol agents from crossing and arresting illegal immigrants.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit in December halted a lower court order that gave Border Patrol agents the green light to cut concertina wire that Texas military had put in place along the banks of the Rio Grande to prevent immigrants from walking into the United States.
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“Texas’s placement of the wire near the riverbank in Eagle Pass has proved particularly problematic for Border Patrol agents,” the Justice Department wrote in its petition Tuesday.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a third-term Republican, sued the Biden administration in October, arguing that Border Patrol agents wrongfully destroyed state property when its agents cut through the concertina wire, allegedly to “assist” immigrants to “illegally cross” the border.
The Biden administration contends that the federal law enforcement agents from the Border Patrol had cut the wire to give medical assistance to immigrants who had already crossed the Rio Grande into U.S. territory, saying that at that point, the immigrants must be apprehended, according to court records.
As illegal immigration into Texas began to rise in early 2021, Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) launched the state’s Operation Lone Star to secure the border. Abbott directed more than 10,000 National Guard soldiers and state police to the border to assist the Border Patrol with apprehending immigrants who enter the country illegally, though only federal police can arrest immigrants.
The Texas Military Department has placed up to 70,000 rolls of wire into different parts of the Texas-Mexico border to deter immigrants from crossing, and it said such efforts are necessary to combat alleged mismanagement of the crisis by the federal government.
In October, the state began to install wire barriers along its shared border with New Mexico, a move that enraged Democrats from both states.
“Texas installs fencing along NEW Mexico border. Our barriers around El Paso forced the migrants crossing illegally to enter into New Mexico. They then entered into El Paso from there. To end that, we are building a barrier on the New Mexico border,” Abbott wrote in a post on X at the time.
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Texas is also in court defending its use of a 1,000-foot string of red buoys in the river near Eagle Pass.
Read the petition in full:
This is a developing story and will be updated.
