Texas Judge Orders State To Remove Floating Border Barriers, Abbott Appeals

A federal judge in the Western district of Texas has ordered that the state remove sections of a floating border barrier that was put into place back in July.

The border buoys in the Rio Grande River near Eagle Pass, Texas must be removed by the 15th of September, as demanded by the judge.

Governor Greg Abbott has announced that he will appeal the ruling.

Texas will appeal. pic.twitter.com/jgeZ3Gt3OV

— Greg Abbott (@GregAbbott_TX) September 6, 2023

The Judge in question is Judge Ezra, and was initially appointed by former President Ronald Raegan to serve in the District of Hawaii.

He would later be assigned to the Western District of Texas with the help of Supreme Court Justice John Roberts.

ABC goes into more detail on this story explaining:

The Justice Department is likely to succeed on its claim that floating barriers Texas deployed in the Rio Grande to prevent migrants from crossing were illegally installed, a federal judge in Austin ruled — adding the arguments used to justify the buoys are “unconvincing” and, in at least one instance, unconstitutional.

Judge David Alan Ezra ordered the Lonestar state to move its buoys on Wednesday and said the Justice Department is likely to prevail on its claim that Texas lacked proper authority to install them in the first place and that the state had employed “unconvincing” and conflicting rationale in doing so.

The ruling grants a preliminary injunction to the Department of Justice, which sued Texas for placing the buoys in the Rio Grande in July.

I really don’t see how any argument for protecting the border could be “unconvincing”, but this is 2023 open-borders America were talking about.

Judge Ezra apparently took issue with Abbott’s assertion that Texas is under invasion.

Well it clearly is.

Addressing that point (or fact), Judge Ezra wrote:

And all Texas’s new argument does is ask the Court to take the additional step — beyond the nonjusticiable question of whether the federal government has failed to protect Texas from invasion — of sanctioning Texas’s assertion of plenary power to declare and respond to ‘all types of invasions, including invasions from non-state or quasistate actors.

Under this logic, once Texas decides, in its sole discretion, that it has been invaded, it is subject to no oversight of its ‘chosen means of waging war.’ Such a claim is breathtaking.

To which Governor Abbott responded:

We will continue to utilize every strategy to secure the border, including deploying Texas National Guard soldiers and Department of Public Safety troopers and installing strategic barriers. Our battle to defend Texas’ sovereign authority to protect lives from the chaos caused by President Biden’s open border policies has only begun. Texas is prepared to take this fight all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The floating barriers installed back in July, as previously stated, are located in one of the busiest border crossing areas in the nation, as reported by Breitbart at the time of installation.

The State of #Texas is taking historic action under Gov. @GregAbbott_TX’s Operation Lone Star to secure the border. Installation of the marine barrier began today in #EaglePass. The marine barrier will deter unlawful crossings & human smuggling, & prevent the loss of life due to… pic.twitter.com/4PYy25RDFr

— Chris Olivarez (@LtChrisOlivarez) July 10, 2023

The barriers have come under attack by the Biden Administration and the President of Mexico since then, unsurprisingly.