A federal judge has ruled that the federal government can cut holes in the razor-wire fencing Texas has set up along part of the border with Mexico, but she delivered a severe rebuke to the Biden administration for abusing that power to help illegal immigrants reach the U.S.
U.S. District Judge Alia Moses rejected Texas’ request for an injunction to stop the Border Patrol from cutting holes in the wire. She said the state didn’t prove the wire-cutting practice was an agency decision that could be challenged in the courts.
But along the way she spanked the federal government for its “culpable and duplicitous conduct” in opening the border to allow illegal immigrants to stream in.
“The evidence presented amply demonstrates the utter failure of the Defendants to deter, prevent, and halt unlawful entry into the United States,” Judge Moses wrote in her ruling Wednesday.
Texas has placed concertina wire on private property along the riverbanks of the Rio Grande to act as a barrier, trying to deter the wave of illegal immigrants around the city of Eagle Pass. State officials say they are trying to redirect migrants to official border crossings, which are safer than wading the river.
They complained that cutting the wire was an illegal attack on private property.
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Homeland Security said Border Patrol agents had to cut holes in the wire to let the migrants through, both for emergency cases and to be able to capture and process the migrants.
The judge said that while there may be some real emergency cases, she saw evidence that agents were also cutting the wire for their own convenience to help illegal immigrants make easier passage into the U.S.
She said she’d seen a video, which is still sealed but which she described for the public, showing Border Patrol agents ripping holes in the concertina wire to allow groups of migrants to climb up the riverbank even though another hole already existed just feet away.
Meanwhile, a Border Patrol boat sat in the river “passively observing” the stream of people but never attempting to deter or interdict them before they reached the riverbank.
“If agents are going to allow migrants to enter the country, and indeed facilitate their doing so, why make them undertake the dangerous task of crossing the river?” the judge wondered. “Would it not be easier, and safer, to receive them at a port of entry? In short, the very emergencies the Defendants assert make it necessary to cut the wire are of their own creation.”
Judge Moses, appointed to the bench by President George W. Bush, also suggested the fence-cutting plan wasn’t effective in actually helping agents catch the migrants.
She said 4,555 migrants entered the U.S. during the incident, but only 2,680 “presented themselves for processing” by agents.
CBP said the ruling was “welcome.”
“Enforcing immigration law is a federal responsibility and the U.S. Border Patrol is on the front lines enforcing the law by apprehending individuals who have crossed onto U.S. soil without authorization and applying immigration consequences,” the agency said in a statement Friday.
CBP said its agents perform “essential humanitarian work.”
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said Thursday he is appealing the judge’s ruling.
“I am disappointed that the federal government’s blatant and disturbing efforts to subvert law and order at our State’s border with Mexico will be allowed to continue,” he said.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
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