In a 5-4 vote, the Supreme Court permitted the feds to cut the razor wire on the Texas-Mexico border as the lawsuit over the wire continues through the courts:

The application to vacate injunction presented to Justice Alito and by him referred to the Court is granted. The December 19, 2023 order of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, case No. 23-50869, is vacated.

Justice Thomas, Justice Alito, Justice Gorsuch, and Justice Kavanaugh would deny the application to vacate injunction.

The justices did not explain why they vacated the injunction.

Texas installed the razor wire because Biden’s administration is not doing anything to secure the border.

The feds started cutting the wire to allow the migrants to cross.

Texas sued the Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, and U.S. Border Patrol, claiming “the Border Patrol illegally destroyed state property.”

In October, Judge Alia Moses of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas ordered the Biden Administration to stop cutting the razor wire installed on the Texas border to deter illegal migrant crossings except in medical emergencies.

Moses said the order would stay in place “until the parties have an opportunity to present evidence at a preliminary injunction hearing before the Court.”

In November, Moses finished considering the state’s motion and ruled against it. She criticized the Biden administration for its carelessness with the border but gave it permission to cut the razor wire “pending the outcome of the state’s lawsuit filed in October.”

Texas appealed.

In December, the 5th Circuit temporarily blocked border agents from cutting the razor wire as the DOJ’s lawsuit against Texas continues through the courts:

“Concluding that the district court legally erred with respect to sovereign immunity and that Texas has otherwise satisfied the factors under Nken v. Holder, 556 U.S. 418, 434 (2009), we GRANT Texas’s request for an injunction pending appeal,” the judges wrote.

“Accordingly, Defendants are ENJOINED during the pendency of this appeal from damaging, destroying, or otherwise interfering with Texas’s c-wire fence in the vicinity of Eagle Pass, Texas, as indicated in Texas’s complaint. As the parties have agreed, Defendants are permitted to cut or move the c-wire if necessary to address any medical emergency as specified in the TRO.”

The Supreme Court granted Biden’s emergency appeal and allow the agents to cut the wire as litigation continues.

The case itself has not reached the Supreme Court.

DONATE

Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.