State of Texas granted an emergency stay allowing the buoy barrier to remain in place for now

AP Photo/Eric Gay

A federal judge issued an injunction against Texas, ordering it to remove the buoy barrier in the Rio Grande River on Wednesday. As soon as the ruling was handed down, Governor Abbott was ready with an appeal. By Thursday evening, an emergency stay was granted to the State of Texas by a U.S. Appeals Court. That was quick.

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Texas can keep the buoy barrier in the Rio Grande River in place for now until a full decision is rendered. The buoy barrier is a part of Operation Lone Star, Governor Abbott’s initiative to secure the Texas border with Mexico. Joe Biden has left border states on their own to handle the flow of illegal immigrants created by his decision to end successful border control policies and agreements on his very first day in office. Since then about 7 million apprehensions have been recorded. That number doesn’t include the hundreds of thousands of gotaways, the illegal immigrants who do not turn themselves in to claim asylum but run from law enforcement and scatter around the state and country.

For context, the buoy barrier is a thousand feet long row of moveable buoys stretched to stop the flow of illegal immigrants in the Eagle Pass, Texas area.

The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals halted District Judge David A. Ezra’s ruling that Texas must remove the buoy barrier by the end of next week. So, nothing changes for now, at least until the next ruling. Governor Abbott has pledged to continue the legal battle all the way to the Supreme Court, if necessary. The Biden DOJ is just as committed in its effort to remove the buoy barrier and continue to allow the porous southern border to remain as it is now.

In documents filed on Thursday, Texas’ legal team pushed the court to issue the stay pending appeal, arguing that the state’s sovereignty and self-defense interests would be irreparably harmed — even if the court eventually ruled in favor of Texas. The state’s lawyers further argued that the barrier was necessary because the state is under “invasion” from drug cartels, leaning into a conservative legal theory that contends states have the constitutional power to enforce border security if its people are in imminent danger.

“The buoys were deployed under the Governor’s constitutional authority to defend Texas from transnational-criminal-cartel invasion,” the Texas lawyers wrote. “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.”

The Texas attorneys also criticized the district judge’s Wednesday interpretation of a law that allows the federal government to regulate waterways and ensure their navigability, which was a key part of the ruling. The judge had also argued that the barrier presented a risk to human life.

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Justice Department lawyers said that Texas didn’t need a stay because the previous ruling cited the state needed only a few days to move the buoy barrier. DOJ said Texas must do it in coordination with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

“Texas by its own admission certainly does not need to move any buoys before September 11 in order to comply with the district court’s order,” the Justice Department lawyers wrote. “A multi-day administrative stay threatens to delay Texas’s preparatory work — by, among other things, diminishing Texas’s incentive to coordinate with the Corps — and thereby threatens Texas’s ability to comply with the repositioning deadline prescribed by the district court, even if this Court (as is likely) ultimately declines to enter a stay pending appeal.”

And, so the battle goes on. Governor Abbott is on his own to protect the Texas border, yet when he acts, Biden’s DOJ steps in to stop him. I wonder why that is. It’s almost like all of this is intentional. Biden is determined to change the country with open borders and allowing illegal aliens to remain in our country, with hopes of making them Democrat voters with blanket amnesty.

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Stephen Moore 8:30 AM | December 15, 2024
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