The Biden administration asked the Supreme Court on Tuesday to allow the Border Patrol to remove barbed wire installed along the Texas-Mexico border by state authorities.
The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals last month issued an order blocking the Biden administration from removing the wire while it considers the appeal from Texas. The Department of Homeland Security 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.
“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,” Prelogar added.
The Biden administration has asked #SCOTUS to freeze a Fifth Circuit order prohibiting it from removing concertina wire Texas installed along the U.S.-Mexico border in the Rio Grande, in a dispute over who has authority to control immigration in the area.https://t.co/3IODeLzKfl
— Katie Buehler (@bykatiebuehler) January 2, 2024
Texas sued the Biden administration for cutting the wire, which Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, had instructed local authorities to place on the border in late October in response to an increase in illegal crossings.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, also a Republican, said at the time that the state has “the sovereign right to construct border barriers to prevent the entry of illegal aliens.”
The 5th Circuit also ruled in December that Texas must move a buoy barrier placed along the Rio Grande near Eagle Pass, Texas.
This report originally was published by the Daily Caller News Foundation
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