▲ Migrants try to overcome the fence to cross into Eagle Pass, Texas, in July 2023.Photo Ap
Ap and Reuters
La Jornada Newspaper
Friday, November 29, 2024, p. 22
New Orleans. A federal appeals court ruled yesterday that Border Patrol agents cannot cut the razor wire that Texas put up on the US-Mexico border in the city of Eagle Pass, which has become the center of aggressive US crackdowns. state to stop migrant crossings.
The two-to-one decision by the US Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals is a victory for Texas Governor Greg Abbott in a long dispute over immigration policy with the Biden administration, which has also sought to eliminate floating barriers installed in the river. Big.
We continue to add barbed wire border barriersthe Republican governor published on the social platform X after the ruling.
Circuit Judge Kyle Duncan, appointed by President-elect Donald Trump during his first term, ruled that Texas was only trying to safeguard its property, not regular the US Border Patrol, and that they would likely succeed in their invasion claims.
Duncan added that the federal government waived its sovereign immunity and rejected his concerns that a ruling in favor of Texas would impede enforcement of immigration law and undermine the government’s relationship with Mexico.
For her part, Circuit Judge Irma Carrillo Ramírez, appointed by President Joe Biden, dissented, saying Texas had not shown that the federal government would waive sovereign immunity or that it would likely prevail on the merits.
He added that Texas was demanding a virtual power of review on federal efforts to enforce immigration law, which would frustrate the government’s ability to ensure the faithful execution of federal law.
Texas argued in the lawsuit originally filed last year that the federal government was undermining the state’s border security efforts by cutting barbed wire.
Deportation plot
Earlier this month, a Texas official offered a parcel of rural land along the U.S.-Mexico border to be used as a staging area for possible mass deportations.
In May, the full Fifth Circuit heard arguments in a separate case between Texas and the White House over whether the state can maintain a floating barrier about 1,000 feet long on the Rio Grande.
The appeals court is also reviewing a judge’s order blocking a Texas law that would allow state officials to arrest, prosecute and order the deportation of people who are in the country illegally.
Many Republicans have blamed Biden for the increase in the number of migrants illegally crossing the US-Mexico border; some of these have been injured by the barbed wire.
The Justice Department has argued that the barrier impedes the U.S. government’s ability to patrol the border, including coming to the aid of migrants in need of help.