Pres. Biden’s DHS has filed a supplemental memorandum to its lawsuit against Texas with the Supreme Court, objecting to the state’s new barricade barring Border Patrol agents from aiding and abetting illegal aliens entering the U.S.
On Wednesday, Texas began blockading Shelby Park in Eagle Pass – a popular entry point for illegal aliens – from federal border agents, in an effort to thwart the Biden Administration’s open-borders policy that has border-crashers surging into the state.
To deal with Texas’ border crisis, the state has taken border protection into its own hands, since federal agents are being ordered to enable illegal immigration and allow a national security crisis to thrive.
In response to the Texas barricade, the Biden Administration filed a supplemental memorandum to its existing lawsuit against a new Texas law empowering state and local law enforcement to arrest illegal immigrants. Texas sued the Biden Administration after federal officials began cutting the wire the state had set up to prevent illegal immigrants from entering the country.
Filed late Friday morning, the memorandum complains that the Border Patrol can’t use its usual “staging area” and must now bring illegal aliens into the U.S. via “suboptimal conditions” – by walking them around the park:
“The TNG Major further informed the Border Patrol agents that TNG would not allow any transport units to pick up the subjects under the port of entry, and that the agents would have to walk the migrants to Loop 480 to transport them outside of Shelby Park for further processing. Loop 480 is a two-way industrial highway, where there is not a lot of space to safely intake migrants.”
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“Without access to the staging area, mobile intake and loading onto transportation must occur on the shoulder along Loop 480, a busy two-lane highway most frequently used by commercial traffic traveling at a high speed. Because of the lack of physical space, there is an increased risk to both migrants and agents of traffic-related injury. Further, there are suboptimal conditions for managing any large groups of migrants in such a small space along a road.”
When it had access to Shelby Park, the Biden Administration could more easily “load migrants onto buses for transport to formal processing locations in Del Rio (Texas) and elsewhere” in the U.S., the filing says:
“Border Patrol uses the staging area to complete mobile intake of migrant biographic information and to transport groups of apprehended migrants to Border Patrol locations where they may be processed more directly.”
The attorney filing the supplemental memorandum says he was told Thursday that “Texas does not want Border Patrol to be able to arrest, process, or transport migrants out of the identified area.”:
“On January 11, 2024, I spoke with the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS). The Regional Director of the Texas DPS advised me that it is the position of the State of Texas, through the National Guard, that it will not allow Border Patrol or DOD personnel who support Border Patrol into the approximately 2.5-mile stretch along the national border near Shelby Park in any operational capacity.
“I was further advised that Texas does not want Border Patrol to be able to arrest, process, or transport migrants out of the identified area.”
Personally, U.S. Border Patrol agents overwhelming support Texas’ effort to stop illegal immigration.
“Shout out to Governor Abbott for enhancing Border Patrol operations!” the Border Patrol Union cheered on social media. “By taking control of an area where so many illegal aliens are simply surrendering, he's freeing up BP agents to patrol areas with high numbers of illegal aliens who attempt to escape arrest. @GregAbbott_TX”
“It's amazing how upset Biden Admin officials get when BP agents are freed up to actually patrol the border instead of processing massive numbers of surrendering illegal aliens,” the Border Patrol Union noted in a separate post.
If the Supreme Court decides to hear the case, it would be the most significant states’ rights battle in recent history, Fox News Correspondent Bill Melugin wrote Friday:
“NEW: In overnight DOJ filing, Feds confirm that the TX National Guard ‘has deployed armed soldiers and vehicles to block federal gov from accessing the river’ in Eagle Pass, & TX informed them no BP agents will be allowed to enter Shelby Park ‘in any operational capacity’. This is a significant escalation by Texas after Feds fought to remove TX water barriers and razor wire, & DOJ is suing TX over its new border security law.
“This is potentially setting up to be the biggest state vs federal fight in a very long time.”