Federal Appeals Court Allows Texas Rio Grande Floating Barriers for Now Under Under Emergency Stay
On Friday, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals placed a hold on a federal judge’s order from earlier in the week requiring Texas Gov. Greg Abbott to remove a floating border barrier his administration deployed on the Rio Grande.
The appeals court issued an administrative stay to the order as the case makes its way through the court system.
In July, Texas began installing a 1,000-yard barrier of floating buoys on the Rio Grande marking the boundary between the United States and Mexico in order to deter migrants from entering the state illegally.
The Biden administration filed a lawsuit against Abbott that same month, arguing that the governor had failed to obtain the federal government’s permission to place the buoys.
On Wednesday, U.S. District Judge David Ezra directed Texas to remove the barriers from the river by Sept. 15.
Ezra wrote in his order that Abbott needed permission to place the floating barriers in the Rio Grande because they obstructed a U.S. navigable waterway in violation of federal law.
The judge also said the water barrier raised international relations issues with Mexico, which are in the purview of the federal government.
“Mexico vigorously denounces the presence of the barrier, expressing its hope for expeditious removal of the barrier as the first topic at the August 10, 2023, meeting between Foreign Secretary Alicia Barcena and Secretary of State Anthony Blinken,” he wrote.
Abbott’s office responded to the judge’s ruling by saying the Biden administration’s failure to secure the border forced the state to act.
The Republican governor further pledged to appeal the decision.
“Today’s court decision merely prolongs President Biden’s willful refusal to acknowledge that Texas is rightfully stepping up to do the job that he should have been doing all along,” Abbott’s office said.
Statement from the Office of the Governor on today’s court ruling by the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas. pic.twitter.com/09pfq1UcQe
— Gov. Greg Abbott (@GovAbbott) September 6, 2023
“This ruling is incorrect and will be overturned on appeal,” it said.
Lawyers for Abbott, in their request for a stay at the 5th U.S. Circuit, argued, “If Texas must move the buoys from their current location, its appellate rights are effectively lost because the harm is already done to Texas’s sovereign self-defense and public-safety interests.”
“The buoys were deployed under the Governor’s constitutional authority to defend Texas from transnational-criminal-cartel invasion,” the filing said.
“Moving the buoys exacerbates dangers to migrants enticed to cross the border unlawfully, and to Texans harmed by human trafficking, drug smuggling, and unchecked cartel violence,” it said.
The Biden administration’s Justice Department had argued in its brief to the 5th Circuit that blocking the lower court’s ruling would prevent the “preparatory work” the state needed to do and threaten “Texas’s ability to comply with the repositioning deadline prescribed by the district court.”
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