Judge orders Biden administration to stop cutting holes in Texas’ border fence

A federal judge issued a temporary restraining order Monday barring the Biden administration from cutting holes in Texas’ border defenses except in cases of severe medical emergency.

Texas has used concertina wire, or razor wire, as a makeshift fence to try to seal off parts of its border that were being overrun by illegal immigrants wading across the Rio Grande.

The state says Homeland Security has been cutting holes in the fencing to help illegal immigrants get through.

Judge Alia Moses said her 14-day restraining order gives Texas and the Biden administration time to develop the case.

She said the case turns on the fact that the wire is being placed on private property where the owners have given Texas permission, so the Biden administration is destroying private property by cutting holes in the wire.

She needs to balance that against federal officials’ ability to manage immigration and borders.

For now, she wrote, Texas “just barely” cleared the legal threshold to earn a restraining order, but she’ll need to rethink the issues as the case proceeds.

Judge Moses scheduled a hearing for next week.

“The matter needed to be further litigated at a hearing is at the intersection of: the private property rights of the persons consenting to the placement of the concertina wire on their land, the Plaintiff’s right to assist private property owners and avoid costs to the Plaintiff; and the Defendants’ responsibilities over national security and border security, and its powers to effectuate its duties, up to and including the destruction of private or state property,” the judge wrote.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton called the ruling a “crucial” block on President Biden’s border plans.

He presented evidence in court that federal officers have used wire cutters to slice gaps in the wire.

He also said that soon after the initial lawsuit was filed, the Biden administration was caught using a forklift to raise up a section of the wire so migrants could come through.

He called that an “outrageous escalation.”

The case is the latest clash between Texas and Mr. Biden over the border and immigration policy.

After Texas erected a floating water wall of buoys along part of the Rio Grande, the Biden administration sued to have it torn down. Mr. Abbott defends the wall as part of his duty under the U.S. Constitution to repel an invasion.

That case is still pending in the courts.

Mr. Abbott has also gone toe-to-toe with the Biden administration on busing illegal immigrants out of the state, shipping them to Democrat-run sanctuary cities in order to share the pain of dealing with the surge of people.

Mr. Biden won some important legal victories against Texas, including a Supreme Court ruling last year that he was free to end the Trump-era Remain in Mexico program and a high court ruling earlier this year that upheld Homeland Security’s severe limits on who should be a target for deportation.