Texas Sues Biden Admin For Cutting Border Wire Placed By State Officials

Texas sued the Biden administration Tuesday for the federal government’s practice of cutting wire placed along the border by state authorities.

Federal agents have implemented a policy of destroying Texas’ wire to “encourage and assist thousands of aliens to illegally cross the Rio Grande and enter Texas,” according to the lawsuit. Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott recently instructed state authorities to place barbed wire along the border in response to an increase of illegal crossings.

“By cutting Texas’s concertina wire, the federal government has not only illegally destroyed property owned by the State of Texas; it has also disrupted the State’s border security efforts, leaving gaps in Texas’s border barriers and damaging Texas’s ability to effectively deter illegal entry into its territory,” the lawsuit alleges.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said in a statement Tuesday that the state has “the sovereign right to construct border barriers to prevent the entry of illegal aliens.”

“Americans across the country were horrified to watch Biden’s open-border policy in action: agents were physically cutting wires and assisting the aliens’ entry into our state,” Paxton said. “This is illegal. It puts our country and our citizens at risk. The courts must put a stop to it, or Biden’s free-for-all will make this crushing immigration crisis even worse.”

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, U.S. Customs and Border Patrol (CBP), CBP Acting Commissioner Troy Miller, U.S. Border Patrol, Border Patrol Chief Jason Owens and Acting Chief Border Patrol Agent Juan Bernal are named as defendants in the lawsuit.

In September, Daily Caller News Foundation reporter Jennie Taer observed illegal migrants fist bumping Border Patrol agents after they cut through the wire, thanking the agents after they were let in.

”I want to be crystal clear – what’s happening is not the fault of the men and women of the U.S. Border Patrol,” former acting Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Commissioner Mark Morgan told the DCNF in September. “They have been thrust into an untenable no-win chaotic situation. Place blame for the lawlessness at our borders where it belongs – the Biden Administration.”

CBP data released Saturday shows September was the month with the most border encounters to date.