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Texas authorities have positioned further razor wire to discourage migrants in Eagle Pass after Attorney General Ken Paxton defied the Biden administration’s menace of authorized motion.
Workers had been filmed unpacking and putting in razor wire in Shelby Park, which had beforehand served as a staging space for processing throughout migrant surges on the closely trafficked border crossing close to the Rio Grande.
The razor wire is on the middle of the lawsuit between Texas and the federal authorities. Paxton on Wednesday knowledgeable the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) that Texas won’t comply with a requirement letter ordering the state to allow federal border authorities into Shelby Park. The Texas Military Department (TMD) seized management of the park final week, saying the transfer was crucial to stop additional unlawful immigration into Eagle Pass. There had been over 302,000 migrant encounters in December alone after a record-setting 2.4 million encounters in fiscal 2023.
DHS known as the transfer unconstitutional and mentioned Texas authorities had been blocking Border Patrol from roughly 2.5 miles of the border. The administration additionally mentioned some obstacles deployed by Texas sit on federal land.
DHS THREATENS TEXAS WITH LEGAL ACTION OVER SEIZURE OF PARK ALONG RIO GRANDE: ‘CEASE AND DESIST’
Texas authorities positioned razor wire in Shelby Park in Eagle Pass, defying a Biden administration order to finish the state’s seizure of the world alongside the Rio Grande. (Matt Finn)
“We demand that Texas cease and desist its efforts to block Border Patrol’s access in and around the Shelby Park area and remove all barriers to access in the Shelby Park area,” states a Jan. 14 letter addressed to Paxton.
The state lawyer common replied on Wednesday, accusing the federal authorities of misstating each the info on the bottom in Texas and the regulation.
“Because the facts and law side with Texas, the State will continue utilizing its constitutional authority to defend her territory, and I will continue defending those lawful efforts in court,” Paxton wrote to DHS General Counsel Jonathan Meyer.
“The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) should stop wasting scarce time and resources suing Texas, and start enforcing the immigration laws Congress already has on the books,” he added.
BIDEN DOJ SEEKS SUPREME COURT INTERVENTION OVER TEXAS RAZOR WIRE AT SOUTHERN BORDER
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (Dylan Hollingsworth/Bloomberg by way of Getty Images)
The Department of Homeland Security and the White House each took intention at Texas after three migrants drowned, together with two youngsters, in the Shelby Park space final week. DHS had mentioned Border Patrol brokers “were physically barred by Texas officials” from coming into the world to offer emergency medical help.
But in courtroom paperwork filed as a part of ongoing litigation, the Department of Justice admitted that Mexican officers suggested Border Patrol at 9 p.m. native time that the migrants had drowned at 8 p.m., that there have been an extra two migrants “in distress” on the U.S. facet of the border. The submitting repeats the declare that Border Patrol was not allowed to enter the world “even in emergency situations.” The two further migrants, who had been affected by hypothermia, had been later rescued by Mexican officers.
However, the DOJ urged that it might have been capable of spot the migrants if that they had entry to the world.
“It is impossible to say what might have happened if Border Patrol had had its former access to the area – including through its surveillance trucks that assisted in monitoring the area,” DOJ officers mentioned. “At the very least, however, Border Patrol would have had the opportunity to take any available steps to fulfill its responsibilities and assist its counterparts in the Mexican government with undertaking the rescue mission. Texas made that impossible.”
DHS SAYS BORDER PATROL BLOCKED BY TEXAS FROM ENTERING AREA TO RESCUE MIGRANTS WHO LATER DROWNED
Immigrants stroll alongside the Rio Grande after crossing the border from Mexico into the United States as Border Patrol brokers watch from an airboat, Sept. 28, 2023, in Eagle Pass, Texas. (John Moore/Getty Images)
In his letter, Paxton known as it “vile” and “completely inaccurate” to blame Texas for the three migrant deaths.
“Contrary to your letter, TMD did not prevent U.S. Border Patrol from entering Shelby Park to attempt a water rescue of migrants in distress. The federal agents at the gate did not even have a boat, and they did not request entry based on any medical exigency,” Paxton wrote.
“Instead, the federal agents told TMD’s staff sergeant that Mexican officials had already recovered dead bodies and that the situation was under control,” Paxton wrote (emphasis his). “Texas’s Guardsmen nevertheless made a diligent search, only to confirm that Mexican officials had recovered the migrants’ bodies, downriver from the Shelby Park boat ramp and on their side of the river.”
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Texas Gov. Greg Abbott additionally mentioned “Biden was clearly wrong to blame Texas for deaths in the Rio Grande.”
“As a federal judge already ruled, Biden & DHS ‘create a perverse incentive’ for migrants to make dangerous illegal crossings,” Abbott wrote in a submit on X. “Biden is to blame for drownings.”
Fox News Digital’s Adam Shaw contributed to this report.
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