Biden administration to Texas: Only we get to ignore laws at the border
Hudson Crozier
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The Justice Department is furious at Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) for what he has done at the U.S.-Mexico border and is planning to sue. No, Abbott isn’t accused of incentivizing people to make deadly trips to the border and cross it illegally, letting drug cartels feed poison into our cities, or putting immigrant minors into the hands of labor and sex traffickers. Those are all things the Biden administration has done or is credibly accused of doing.
Instead, the Justice Department is angry that Texas put inflatable objects in the Rio Grande to stop people from crossing it.
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“The floating barrier violates section 10 of the Rivers and Harbors Act,” the department said in a letter.
The act “prohibits the creation of any obstruction to the navigable capacity of waters of the United States, and further prohibits building any structure in such waters without authorization from the United States Army Corps of Engineers (‘Corps’),” the letter read. “Accordingly, a Department of the Army permit is required for the installation of structures or work in or affecting navigable waters of the United States.”
The attorneys listed several things they expect Texas to care about as their boss, President Joe Biden, ignores them.
“The State of Texas’s actions violate federal law, raise humanitarian concerns, present serious risks to public safety and the environment, and may interfere with the federal government’s ability to carry out its official duties,” they wrote.
Biden’s Department of Homeland Security has implemented mass parole programs that plainly violate federal law, as experts and lawmakers have pointed out. The government may only parole illegal immigrants on a case-by-case basis for “urgent humanitarian reasons or significant public benefit.” The DHS apparently considers illegal immigration itself to be a public benefit, making blanket policies that grant eligibility to entire countries. It continues these programs in violation of court orders rendering them illegal.
The federal government has also failed to address numerous “humanitarian concerns” related to our collapsing immigration system.
Other countries know that Biden’s presidency is the opportune time to travel to the border and expect lenient treatment. Foreigners even gathered outside the border in March 2021, wearing T-shirts that read, “Biden please let us in!” Though information is limited, we know that a record number of people died traveling to the border in fiscal 2022. Biden seemingly thinks it is compassionate to inspire desperate people to risk drowning in the Rio Grande or dying in deserts. In fact, the DHS has awarded funds to people who create maps for this purpose.
There was not a lot of posturing about “public safety” when Border Patrol mistakenly released a suspected terrorist into the country because it has struggled to process so many illegal immigrants. Countless immigrants evade capture or screening at the border, while hundreds of others have criminal records and are released anyway.
Lastly, the biggest obstacle to the Biden administration’s “official duties” at the border is its own policies, which drastically lower deportations and other basic methods of border enforcement.
But all of a sudden, when the federal government thinks a state has gone too far by putting some buoys in the water, the strict letter of the law matters again? Now officials are going to squabble about permits? It appears that the dream of an open border is the only law this administration follows.
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Hudson Crozier is a summer 2023 Washington Examiner fellow.