In 1787-88, the people of the state ratifying conventions could never have envisioned something like this when they created the federal government.
On Tuesday, Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton of Texas filed a lawsuit against multiple federal officials, including Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas, accusing U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents of destroying state property, among other things.
On multiple recent occasions, cameras have caught CBP agents cutting concertina wire designed to bar illegal immigrants from entering Texas.
In June, for instance, video showed a Border Patrol officer cutting wire on the Texas side of the border.
NEW: Video from source in Eagle Pass shows Border Patrol cutting through razor wire placed by the state of TX to allow migrants to enter & be processed after crossing illegally. @TxDPS tells me this is the first time they know of this happening, and that it’s being looked into… pic.twitter.com/jESPbzj9sw
— Bill Melugin (@BillMelugin_) June 30, 2023
Worse yet, a September video appeared to show an illegal immigrant fist-bumping a Border Patrol agent who cut wire and then allowed the illegal immigrants to pass.
EXCLUSIVE: Illegal Migrants Fist Bump Border Patrol After They Cut Through Abbott’s Border Wirehttps://t.co/hjfo3uzi9q@DailyCaller pic.twitter.com/te7NF8cczr
— Jennie Taer 🇮🇱🇺🇸 (@JennieSTaer) September 28, 2023
These scenes left the Texas attorney general and many Americans enraged at President Joe Biden.
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“Americans across the country were horrified to watch Biden’s open-border policy in action: agents were physically cutting wires and assisting the aliens’ entry into our state. This is illegal. It puts our country and our citizens at risk,” Paxton said in a statement, according to Fox News. “The courts must put a stop to it, or Biden’s free-for-all will make this crushing immigration crisis drastically worse.”
Paxton also announced the lawsuit on social media.
“Today, I filed a lawsuit against the Biden Administration regarding their cutting razor wire at the border. Texas is and will continue to be America’s greatest backstop to the failures of the federal government,” Paxton tweeted.
BREAKING: Today, I filed a lawsuit against the Biden Administration regarding their cutting razor wire at the border. Texas is and will continue to be America’s greatest backstop to the failures of the federal government. https://t.co/rfzJWYqYxH
— Attorney General Ken Paxton (@KenPaxtonTX) October 24, 2023
Recently acquitted after a sham impeachment, the Texas attorney general has wasted no time renewing his fight against illegal immigration.
In his complaint, filed with the U.S. District Court, Western District of Texas, Paxton charged the federal government with so badly neglecting border security that the state had no choice but to erect concertina wire, also called “razor” wire.
“Texas has acted to fill the breach created by the federal government’s indolence,” Paxton wrote.
Alas, near Eagle Pass, Texas, which Paxton called the “epicenter” of a “recent” and “unprecedented” surge of illegal immigrants, CBP agents “increased this federal practice of cutting, destroying, or otherwise damaging Texas’s concertina wire that had been strategically positioned for the purpose of securing the border and stemming the flow of illegal migration.”
Paxton even cited a specific date on which the federal agents’ shocking and subversive behavior began.
“Since September 20, 2023, federal agents have developed and implemented a policy, pattern, or practice of destroying Texas’s concertina wire to encourage and assist thousands of aliens to illegally cross the Rio Grande and enter Texas,” he wrote.
Thus, federal agents have committed multiple crimes, according to Paxton.
“By cutting Texas’s concertina wire, 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 attorney general wrote.
As a state attorney general, Paxton has taken appropriate action. In any case, it is the only course of action available to him. Whether dragging the federal government into court will do any good, only time will tell.
For the rest of us, however, this situation raises a much deeper question.
Assuming Paxton’s complaint has merit, federal agents have acted both in defiance of the law and against Texans’ interests. This has left Paxton no choice but to appeal to the U.S. District Court.
If the U.S. District Court — another federal entity — provides no relief, then what next? In other words, what recourse do Americans have when every branch of the federal government ignores their rights and interests?
In 1798, for instance, the federal government trampled the First Amendment by passing the hideous Alien and Sedition Acts. Thomas Jefferson and James Madison responded by arguing that the states had an obligation to shield their citizens from the federal government’s patently unconstitutional behavior.
Decades later, in the hands of South Carolina firebrands, Jefferson’s “nullification” argument became twisted, and therefore, infamous.
Madison, however, called the states’ act of shielding its own citizens “interposition.” He explained it at length in his “Report of 1800.” The Founding Era produced no more important statement on the principles of federalism and constitutional liberty.
Significantly, no one had yet dreamed of submitting all constitutional questions to courts. The American revolutionaries would have chafed at an idea so obviously hostile to liberty and self-government.
With this in mind, Texas must do whatever it takes to shield its citizens from hostile federal actors. What exactly that might mean is for Texas officials and their citizens to decide.
In the meantime, they should have no doubt about their constitutional and natural rights to defend themselves.
