Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton on Monday promised that “the fight is not over” after the Supreme Court granted an emergency appeal by the Biden administration to allow Border Patrol agents to resume cutting razor wire set up by Texas at the southern border.
“The Supreme Court’s temporary order allows Biden to continue his illegal effort to aid the foreign invasion of America,” Paxton said in a statement to Fox News Digital.
“The destruction of Texas’s border barriers will not help enforce the law or keep American citizens safe,” he said. “This fight is not over, and I look forward to defending our state’s sovereignty.”
The court ruled in a 5-4 decision to allow the federal government to resume the removal of the fence installed by Texas along the southern border near Eagle Pass while litigation continues.
Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Amy Coney Barrett joined the three liberal justices in a 5-4 vote to allow the practice to resume. Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, and Brett Kavanaugh would have denied the application to vacate injunction, the court said.
Paxton had sued the administration in October over its damaging of the wire, accusing the administration of disrupting state efforts to secure the border and damaging the ability to deter illegal entry.
The Biden administration has argued that once migrants are on U.S. soil, Border Patrol agents must apprehend them, and has claimed the wire “inhibits Border Patrol’s ability to patrol the border.” The administration has also argued that federal immigration law supersedes Texas’ own efforts to control the border.