A divided Supreme Court on Monday allowed Border Patrol agents to cut razor wire installed by Texas on the US-Mexico border. A lawsuit over the wire is still pending.
By a 5-4 vote, the justices granted the Biden administration’s emergency appeal, which has been in an escalating standoff at the border with Texas and had objected to an appellate ruling in favor of the state.
The wire is part of Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s larger dispute with the administration over immigration enforcement, according to the Associated Press.
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Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott recently had his authorities seize city property along the southern border, arresting migrants crossing illegally for trespassing, which the federal government has vocally opposed.
The Biden administration subsequently asked the Supreme Court to intervene, arguing that Texas was overstepping its authority, sparking a legal battle the high court hadn’t seen since 2012.
“Courts traditionally have said that states have only a limited role to play when it comes to enforcing our immigration laws. Texas is now challenging that traditional assumption, and we’ll have to see how the courts rule on this important issue,” Stephen W. Yale-Loehr, professor of immigration law practice at Cornell, said in an interview with the Daily Caller News Foundation.
In 2012, the Supreme Court ruled in a case known as Arizona v. United States that states can’t enforce immigration laws after the state tried to take matters into its own hands.
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Texas’ takeover of Shelby Park in Eagle Pass led to the Biden administration’s Department of Homeland Security (DHS) saying Texas prevented Border Patrol agents from responding to the drowning of a migrant mother and two of her children in the Rio Grande River on Jan. 13.
It was later discovered that federal authorities informed Texas of the drownings after they had occurred, according to a Jan. 15 Department of Justice filing in the Supreme Court.
The Biden administration and Texas have also sparred on whether or not the state has the right to erect razor wire along the southern border, whether or not state authorities can arrest migrants for illegal entry and whether or not Abbott can have buoys placed in the Rio Grande.
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