President Biden has been on the hunt for ways to make crossing the southern border easier than ever. With his influence on the Supreme Court showing, on January 22nd they delivered a 5-4 split decision to grant a stay and allow the Biden administration to open Texas’ border barrier with Mexico.
There’s been a showdown over what the US Court of Appeals determined (siding with Texas) and what the Biden administration wants (preventing Texas from securing the border).
Judge Kyle Duncan, from the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, wrote about the problem when the court sided with Texas back in December:
“The number of Border Patrol encounters with migrants illegally entering the country has swelled from a comparatively paltry 458,000 in 2020 to 1.7 million in 2021 and 2.4 million in 2022. Unsurprisingly, the situation has been exploited by drug cartels, who have made an incredibly lucrative enterprise out of trafficking human beings and illegal drugs like fentanyl, which is frequently encountered in vast quantities at the border.”
Duncan continued by explaining how c-wire (aka concertina wire) serves as an effective tool at the border, just like it does for prisons and military installations. Simply, this wire had been a cheap and crucial tool in stemming the tide of illegal immigration across our southern border. A joint venture between Texas law enforcement and the Border Patrol, this wire was the answer Texas needed when Biden refused to help.
Now that’s being dismantled. The way the Biden administration sells the story, this c-wire was a criminal deterrent they had to cut through to rescue people. Something the Texas government wasn’t willing to abide by, as it was paramount to trespassing. Attorney General Merrick Garland’s U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) thought they had immunity, and now they wanted to rip it down permanently as a way of flexing their muscle.
The appellate court had previously said, “The district court found that the Border Patrol exceeded its authority by cutting Texas’s c-wire fence for purposes other than a medical emergency, inspection, or detention. Moreover, the public interest supports clear protections for property rights from government intrusion and control.” However, this no longer matters.
With the Border Patrol being forced to make these cuts to help illegals drowning in the Rio Grande, Texas was being forced to deal with the fallout with little to no advanced warning and often leaving a gaping hole until they could come to repair it yet again. U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar, Biden’s top lawyer at the Supreme Court, filed for a stay of the initial injunction, a move many expected to be rejected. Yet it passed with Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Amy Coney Barrett jumping ship to go against the conservative voice.
For shame.
