Texas has won a round in its court battle to keep Biden administration officials from cutting through barbed wire the state has placed along the Rio Grande to keep out illegal immigrants.
The state had appealed a lower court ruling issued in November letting federal agents cut the wire to allow illegal aliens into Texas, The New York Times reported.
“The federal government has not only illegally destroyed property owned by the State of Texas; it has also disrupted the State’s border security efforts, leaving gaps in Texas’s border barriers and damaging Texas’s ability to effectively deter illegal entry into its territory,” the state had argued, according to Fox News.
Fox noted that border officials encountered a record 12,600 migrants at the southern border on Monday.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit issued an injunction against the federal government on Tuesday, ruling that while Texas’ appeal is in process, the wire it has strung can only be cut if there is a medical emergency.
While the federal government said Texas is interfering in immigration, a federal issue, the court did not agree, instead siding with Texas’ argument that the Biden administration should keep its hands off state property.
“The district court found that the Border Patrol exceeded its authority by cutting Texas’s c-wire fence for purposes other than a medical emergency, inspection, or detention. Moreover, the public interest supports clear protections for property rights from government intrusion and control,” the appeals court said.
The court said the injunction was necessary to protect Texas from the harm it would suffer if the Biden administration were allowed to continue cutting its wire as the case moves through the courts.
“The district court found Texas would suffer irreparable harm ‘in the form of loss of control and use of its private property.’ We see no error, clear or otherwise, in this finding,” the appeals court wrote.
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The 29 miles of wire strung along the border is part of a multi-phase effort by the state to deter illegal immigration, which Gov. Greg Abbott has said is necessary because of the open-border policies of President Joe Biden.
Earlier this week, Abbott signed a law that makes crossing the border illegally a state crime. The law would jail illegal immigrants unless they agree to immediately go back to Mexico, The Texas Tribune reported.
“Biden’s deliberate inaction has left Texas to fend for itself,” Abbott said on Monday.
