Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton flatly rejected the federal government’s demands that the state relinquish access to a key illegal immigrant staging ground on the Rio Grande, saying the Department of Homeland Security should spend more time enforcing the border and less time suing Texas.
Mr. Paxton, a Republican, said the feds were twisting the facts about the standoff at Shelby Park, in Eagle Pass, which Texas National Guard troops have taken control of, denying access to Border Patrol agents who had been using the site as part of catch-and-release operations.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott says the state’s takeover of the park, which began Jan. 11, is part of his effort to secure the border where President Biden won’t. He cites state powers under the Constitution to repel an “invasion” as his authority.
Those claims have left the Biden administration increasingly belligerent, with officials sending desist orders. Mr. Paxton said Texas won’t bow.
“As I said before, this office will continue to defend Texas’s efforts to protect its southern border against every effort by the Biden Administration to undermine the State’s constitutional right of self-defense. You should advise your clients to join us in those efforts by doing their job and following the law,” he wrote in a letter to Homeland Security General Counsel Jonathan E. Meyer.
The feds say they struck an agreement in 2018 for an easement granting access to the park. Mr. Paxton said that deal is void because the state never signed off on it. And even if the agreement were valid, Mr. Paxton said it only extended to maintaining a road along the river, not to using the property for catch-and-release.
The park has become the epicenter of the border battle, with the Rio Grande so shallow at that point that it’s relatively easy to wade across, serving as an enticing entry point for illegal immigrants.
Texas has placed razor wire along the river banks and a floating border wall in the river, both of which have been the subject of legal battles with Mr. Biden.
The Supreme Court, in a ruling this week, said the feds can cut the border wire, though contrary to some accounts the ruling does bar Texas from placing new wire or maintaining the wire it already placed.
In an order Friday evening, a circuit court sent that razor wire case back to a district court to develop more evidence about the situation on the ground.
The two sides have particularly feuded over several migrant drownings that occurred after the state troops occupied the park.
The feds suggested Border Patrol agents were prepared to make a rescue attempt but were blocked by their lack of access to the park. Texas says the agents showed up well after the drownings, didn’t bring any rescue equipment and never said there was an emergency situation.
Federal officials say the national government has control over immigration and Texas’ efforts are interfering with Mr. Biden’s attempts to manage the flow of people — which in this case means how they are caught and released.
The rhetoric — and actions — from both Texas and the Biden administration have turned the park into a brewing constitutional crisis. The White House this week said Mr. Biden has the option of nationalizing the state’s National Guard troops so he can order them to stop barricading the park.
Mr. Abbott, meanwhile, released a defiant statement after the Supreme Court ruling saying he’s acting under the invasion powers and won’t back down.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
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