The Biden administration asked the Supreme Court on Tuesday to allow border patrol to remove wire installed along the Texas border by state authorities.
The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals issued an order in December blocking the administration from removing the wire while it considers Texas’ appeal.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) asked the Supreme Court in an emergency application Tuesday to freeze the order, arguing that federal law grants agents authority to access private lands near the border.
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“Like other law-enforcement officers, Border Patrol agents operating under difficult circumstances at the border must make context-dependent, sometimes split-second decisions about how to enforce federal immigration laws while maintaining public safety,” Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar wrote in the Supreme Court filing. “But the injunction prohibits agents from passing through or moving physical obstacles erected by the State that prevent access to the very border they are charged with patrolling and the individuals they are charged with apprehending and inspecting.”
Texas sued the Biden administration for cutting the wire, which Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott instructed local authorities to place on the border in response to an increase of illegal crossings, in late October.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said at the time that the state has “the sovereign right to construct border barriers to prevent the entry of illegal aliens.”
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The Fifth Circuit also ruled in December that Texas must move the buoy barrier placed along the Rio Grande near Eagle Pass, Texas.
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