SCOTUS rules federal agents can remove Texas border wire

(NewsNation) — The Supreme Court has vacated an injunction from the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals that would have prohibited the federal government from removing concertina wire at the Texas border.

By a 5-4 vote, the justices granted an emergency appeal from the Biden administration, 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 concertina wire along roughly 30 miles of the Rio Grande near the border city of Eagle Pass is part of Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s broader fight with the administration over immigration enforcement.

Texas sued the Department of Homeland Security to prevent the Biden administration from cutting the concertina wire barrier, which the government said was harming migrants, snagging and cutting them.

In court papers, the administration said the wire impedes Border Patrol agents from reaching migrants as they cross the river and that, in any case, federal immigration law trumps Texas’ own efforts to stem the flow of migrants into the country.

Texas argued that cutting the wire was destroying state property and that removing the wire, put up along the border between ports of entry, would make the area unsafe.

An appeals court judge had temporarily blocked the government from removing the wire.

While the order allows the barrier to be removed, the case is still working its way through the courts. It is one of several conflicts between Texas and the federal government over border enforcement.

Abbott has also installed a floating buoy barrier in the Rio Grande, an issue also taken up by the courts with a recent appeals court decision allowing the floating barrier to remain until the case is decided.

The Justice Department has also sued Texas over a law that would give state and local law enforcement the ability to enforce border policies, something the federal government argues is its sole purview.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.