A federal judge on Monday ordered the Biden administration to stop cutting razor wire on fences along the southern border in Texas meant to stop illegal migrant crossings.
Judge Alia Moses, of the U.S. Western District of Texas, on Monday ordered the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to stop “disassembling, degrading, tampering” miles of razor wire running along the Rio Grande near Eagle Pass.
The temporary order is a result of a lawsuit brought by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, arguing that federal officials claimed they had authority to destroy state property “to allow [illegal] aliens to enter & be processed.”
Paxton asked the court for an immediate injunction last week, noting in his request to the court that “federal agents escalated matters, trading bolt cutters for an industrial-strength telehandler forklift to dismantle Texas’s border fence.”
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“Federal agents used hydraulic-powered pallet forks to rip Texas’s fence—concertina wire, fencing posts, clamps, and all—out of the ground, holding it suspended in the air in order to wave more than 300 migrants illegally into Texas,” the motion for a temporary injunction reads.
Last week, DHS released a statement saying that border agents “have a responsibility under federal law” to protect migrants from being injured regardless of their legal status.
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In an 11-page document filed in the with the federal court in Del Rio, Judge Moses found that the state of Texas had met the required four-part test needed to be granted a temporary halt to the federal government’s action, made one exception.
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“The Court shall grant the temporary relief requested, with one important exception for any medical emergency that mostly likely results in serious bodily injury or death to a person, absent any boats or other life-saving apparatus available to avoid such medical emergencies prior to reaching the concertina wire barrier,” the judge wrote in the court filing.
The temporary restraining order will remain in place until the parties have an opportunity to present evidence at a preliminary injunction hearing before the court, which is scheduled for Nov. 7.
The Department of Justice, which is handling the litigation, declined to comment.
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