Texas Border Business
AUSTIN, Texas – Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has appealed a decision by a federal judge allowing President Joe Biden and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to continue to destroy the State’s border barriers. Texas had requested that the court preliminarily enjoin the federal government from cutting, destroying, damaging, or otherwise interfering with Texas’s concertina wire fence until the court can hold a final trial.
In October, Attorney General Paxton filed a lawsuit and a motion for preliminary injunction against the Biden Administration’s Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”), DHS Secretary Mayorkas, and other agencies and officials after federal agents destroyed Texas’s concertina wire and allowed aliens into Texas on an almost daily basis for weeks. A federal judge granted a temporary restraining order on an emergency basis after federal agents escalated their destruction of Texas’s concertina wire at the State’s border with Mexico just days after Texas filed the lawsuit.
However, the decision today will allow the Biden administration to resume its policy of destroying Texas’s concertina wire placed by Texas law enforcement to stop the unrestricted flow of aliens entering the state.
“I am disappointed that the federal government’s blatant and disturbing efforts to subvert law and order at our State’s border with Mexico will be allowed to continue,” said Attorney General Paxton. “Biden’s doctrine of open borders at any cost threatens the safety of our citizens, and we will continue to fight it every step of the way.”
Despite denying Texas’s motion, the court found no merit in the Biden Administration’s arguments that Texas’s wire fence interferes with Border Patrol’s ability to perform its duties or to address medical emergencies. The court found “[t]he evidence presented amply demonstrates the utter failure of the Defendants to deter, prevent, and halt unlawful entry into the United States. The [Biden Administration] cannot claim the statutory duties they are so obviously derelict in enforcing as excuses to puncture [Texas’] attempts to shore up the [Administration’s] failing system. Nor may they seek judicial blessing of practices that both directly contravene those same statutory obligations and require the destruction of [Texas’s] property. Any justifications resting on the [Biden Administration’s] illusory and life-threatening ‘inspection’ and ‘apprehension’ practices, or lack thereof, fail.”
On appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, the Office of the Attorney General and co-counsel the Texas Public Policy Foundation will continue defending Texans from the dangerous consequences of the Biden administration’s policy of tearing down deterrents to illegal immigration.
To read the decision, click here.
To read the appeal, click here.
