The U.S. Department of Justice on Monday filed a lawsuit against Texas and Gov. Greg Abbott over the buoy barrier the state placed in the Rio Grande to prevent migrants from crossing the river into the U.S.
Abbott, appearing on Fox News’ “Special Report” with Bret Baier on Monday, said Texas will take the matter all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court if need be and that the floating barrier and other obstacles “have turned away and repelled tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of people who try to enter into the United States illegally.”
The lawsuit asks a federal judge in Austin to force Texas to remove the roughly 1,000-foot line of bright orange, wrecking ball-sized buoys that the Biden administration says raises humanitarian and environmental concerns. The suit claims that Texas unlawfully installed the barrier without permission between the border cities of Eagle Pass and Piedras Negras, Mexico.
Abbott dismissed that claim.
“The fact of the matter is they’re using some obscure statute to try to stop us from continuing to deploy those buoys. It’s not ground in law whatsoever,” he said. “We believe we have the right to do so and we will take this lawsuit all the way to the United States Supreme Court.”
The Biden administration has said illegal border crossings have declined significantly since new immigration restrictions took effect in May. In June, the first full month since the new polices took effect, U.S. Customs and Border Protection said migrant encounters were down 30% from the month prior and were at the lowest levels since Biden’s first full month in office.
Abbott said that if Texas loses in federal court, it will move on to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. The next stop would be the conservative-majority Supreme Court.
“Texas is defending its sovereignty and its constitutional right to secure the border of our state and our country,” he said.
Despite a report last week suggesting that the buoys and razor wire are endangering migrants, Abbott said they’re intended to steer them to the state’s legal ports of entry.
“There are 29 ports of entry in the state of Texas. People that are seeking asylum can go to those ports of entry to try to enter the United States,” he said. “It is completely illegal for anybody to try to cross the border between the ports of entry. All the Biden administration has to do is enforce the laws already on the books to prevent people from crossing between the ports of entry.”