According to a report from CNN, “The Supreme Court is allowing US Border Patrol agents to remove razor-wire deployed by Texas GOP Gov. Greg Abbott’s security initiative at the US-Mexico border while the state’s legal challenge to the practice plays out.” It is also worth noting that the voting results of the Supreme Court were 5-4 in favor of the Biden Administration. It is also reported that “The justices’ order is a major victory for President Joe Biden in his ongoing dispute with Abbott over border policy, which had become especially fraught in recent days after three migrants drowned in a section of the Rio Grande that state officials have blocked agents’ access to, prompting the administration to further press for the high court’s intervention”.
The report also mentions that “A federal appeals court last month ordered the Border Patrol agents to stop removing razor wire along a small stretch of the Rio Grande while court proceedings continue, and the Justice Department asked the justices earlier this month to step in on an emergency basis to wipe away that order, which they did on Monday.” It is worth noting that the border issue in the US is similar to problems countries are having in other parts of the world and it is well-documented how the authorities are not working with each other within the US to stop the illegal immigration of migrants from Mexico and other parts of the world.
Steve Vladeck, CNN Supreme Court analyst and professor at the University of Texas School of Law, said “Whatever one thinks of current immigration policy, it ought not to be that controversial that states cannot prevent the federal government from enforcing federal law – lest we set the stage for Democratic-led states to similarly attempt to frustrate the enforcement of federal policies by Republican presidents”. “That four justices would still have left the lower-court injunction in place will be taken, rightly or wrongly, as a sign that some of those longstanding principles of constitutional federalism might be in a degree of flux.” It is to be noted that Texas had urged the Supreme Court to deny the Biden administration’s request, telling the justices in court papers that “there is no basis for this Court’s intervention, much less now.”
