DHS Asks Supreme Court to Permit Border Agents to Cut Texas’s Razor Wire Border Fence
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) requested permission from the Supreme Court to allow federal border agents to cut the razor wire fence installed by the state of Texas to defend the southern border against illegal entries.
The state of Texas and the federal government have been involved in a series of legal disputes over the jurisdiction of the southern border and enforcement of federal immigration laws for several months. On Tuesday, the DHS filed a petition with the Supreme Court requesting approval to remove the razor wire fencing installed by the Texas National Guard.
Texas initially sought an injunction pending appeal to “prevent the United States Border Patrol from cutting, destroying, or otherwise interfering with” the razor wire barrier the state had constructed along more than 29 miles of city-owned and private land in the Eagle Pass sector along the U.S. southern border.
The DHS has since petitioned the Supreme Court to vacate an injunction pending an appeal entered by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, which sided with Texas in December in a ruling that allowed Texas to maintain its razor wire barriers along the Rio Grande river. National Review adds that the “appeals-court order bars U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents from removing the barriers unless in cases of medical emergencies, such as drowning or heat exposure.”
“Texas sued the United States, claiming that federal Border Patrol agents in Eagle Pass were committing conversion and trespass to chattels under Texas law when, in the course of performing their federal duties, they disturbed rolls of razor wire fencing that Texas placed near the bank of the river,” the DHS petition reads. The department argues that “Federal law unambiguously grants Border Patrol agents the authority, without a warrant, to access private land within 25 miles of the international border.” Furthermore, the department says, “Texas cannot use state tort law to restrain federal Border Patrol agents carrying out their federal duties.”
The department also argued that the “narrow exception permitting agents to cut the wire in case of extant medical emergencies” enables federal agents to respond to life-threatening conditions, but fails to address the “uncontested evidence that it can take 10 to 30 minutes to cut through Texas’s dense layers of razor wire.”
In response to the DHS’s legal plea with the Supreme Court, Texas Governor Greg Abbott said that he will “continue to deploy National Guard to build border barriers & repel illegal immigrants.”
“See you in court,” Governor Abbot added.
