Weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court sided with the Biden administration on allowing federal agents to cut Texas-installed razor wire along the border, Gov. Greg Abbott vowed to expand his razor-wire fencing efforts.
The Republican governor has set up the fencing near Shelby Park in Eagle Pass, leading to a legal dispute between his administration and the White House. Last month, the U.S. high court handed down a ruling that allowed federal agents to remove the wire as the appeals process plays out.
“The Texas National Guard is undertaking operations to expand this effort. We’re not going to contain ourselves just to this park,” Mr. Abbott told reporters at a news conference that was attended by about a dozen other governors.
“We are expanding to further areas to make sure that we expand our level of deterrence and denial of illegal entry into the United States.”
Texas has installed more than 100 miles of fencing near the border, he said, adding that the wire should be protected despite the Supreme Court’s decision. The fencing has been effective in deterring illegal immigration, he said, adding that the area was once swarming with illegal aliens.
“This area was at one time, not too long ago, an area where there would be ... sometimes 5,000 people crossing illegally,” Mr. Abbott told reporters. “Now that we’ve taken control of this area, for the past three days, there’s an average of only three people crossing illegally in this area.”
He added that the move shows that the “state of Texas can do what the federal government is charged to do and has the tools and equipment to do.”
An official in the Abbott administration, meanwhile, said that Texas is aiming to implement similar measures in other border communities.
“We are going to keep expanding out that way and doing everything we can to stop the illegal immigration at the line, on the river,” Mike Banks, the official, told The New York Times over the weekend.
“It’s fair to say that we are going to go anywhere where illegal immigration is happening, and we’re going to hit them at the point of entry to prevent them from making the entry onto the soil.”
Mr. Abbott also said that the Biden administration has handled the border situation poorly.
Republicans have long said that the president’s scrapping of a number of Trump-era border controls caused the spike in illegal immigration in recent years.
“We can relinquish control of it tomorrow if Joe Biden were to step up and do exactly what we’re doing here and stop people from crossing the border illegally,” Mr. Abbott told reporters.
As he spoke, several dozen immigrant rights activists and people opposed to illegal immigration demonstrated without incident a short distance from the park.
Several Other Governors Weigh In
Four of the other governors spoke at the news conference: Bill Lee of Tennessee, Brian Kemp of Georgia, Greg Gianforte of Montana, and Sarah Huckabee Sanders of Arkansas. They all described President Biden as being weak on border security.The Supreme Court, in a 5–4 decision on Jan. 22, granted a request by the Biden administration to pause a lower court’s ruling that temporarily blocked federal agents from disturbing the fencing while litigation over the issue proceeds.
Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Amy Coney Barrett, both appointed by Republicans, joined the three Democrat-appointed justices in the majority, with GOP-appointed Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, and Brett Kavanaugh dissenting.
The New Orleans-based Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which issued the disputed interim ruling, is set to hear arguments on Feb. 7 over whether Border Patrol agents violated Texas law by cutting the razor-wire barrier.
The fencing at issue in the dispute was installed on private property along the Rio Grande by the Texas National Guard as part of what was called Operation Lone Star, introduced by Mr. Abbott in 2021 to deter illegal border crossings.
Texas sued the administration in October 2023 over what it said was an intensified practice by U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents of cutting, destroying, or otherwise damaging fencing that the state had strategically placed on private land with landowners’ permission.
The Biden administration earlier this year urged the justices to halt the Fifth Circuit’s ruling, saying there was no indication that the wire had deterred migrants from crossing into the United States.
In a subsequent filing, the administration said Texas had set up new barriers along part of the state’s border with Mexico that impeded the ability of Border Patrol agents to monitor and respond to emergencies.
