Texas attorney general Ken Paxton, a Republican, refused to comply with the Biden administration’s recent demands to end the state’s border-security measures and allow federal agents inside a city-owned park along the southern border.
On Friday, Paxton told the Department of Homeland Security that Texas would continue defending its border, despite the federal government’s legal efforts to undermine the Lone Star State’s sovereignty amid the worsening border crisis. In a letter to DHS general counsel Jonathan Meyer, the attorney general said the department’s second demand letter was not based in facts.
“Presumably because you have no meaningful response to our letter, your latest letter abandons earlier factual assertions, asserts new ones, and supplies even less of a legal basis for your demand,” Paxton wrote. “Once again, I respectfully suggest that any time you might spend suing Texas should be redirected toward enforcing the immigration laws Congress already has on the books.”
The DHS demanded on Tuesday that the Texas Military Department surrender control of Shelby Park, once a busy area for illegal crossings into the border city of Eagle Pass, to Border Patrol, which is overseen by the DHS. Texas was urged to remove razor wire, fencing, and soldiers from the property as part of the request. In response, Paxton strongly rejected the demand to essentially turn Shelby Park into “an unofficial and unlawful port of entry.”
“Your request is hereby denied,” he wrote.
The Tuesday letter came one day after the Supreme Court issued a temporary order allowing Border Patrol agents to cut the concertina wire that Texas installed along the U.S.–Mexico border to prevent illegal immigration. The federal government’s lawsuit against Texas is still pending, which is why the order is temporary.
Instead of abiding by the letter, Paxton issued several counter-demands in return. “By February 15, DHS must supply the official plat maps and deeds demonstrating the precise parcels of land to which they claim ownership, an explanation of how Texas is preventing access to those specific parcels, documentation showing that Eagle Pass or Texas ever granted permission for DHS to erect infrastructure that interferes with border security, and proof of Congress empowering DHS to turn a Texas park into an unofficial and illegal port of entry,” his office’s press release states.
“If the federal government is going to make such claims, it must provide proof,” it adds.
The Biden administration has argued that Governor Greg Abbott, Paxton, and other Texas state officials don’t have the authority to enforce immigration law. Abbott, however, signed a law last month that aims to give state and local police the power to arrest and deport immigrants who cross illegally into Texas. The new border law is set to take effect March 5.
“As I said before, this office will continue to defend Texas’s efforts to protect its southern border against every effort by the Biden Administration to undermine the State’s constitutional right of self-defense,” Paxton concluded.
The latest development in the intensified border fight comes as U.S. Customs and Border Protection reported on Friday its agents encountered 302,034 migrants at the southern border for the month of December, an all-time high.
Also on Friday, Biden vowed to “shut down the border when it becomes overwhelmed” if Congress passes its long-anticipated bipartisan immigration legislation. Negotiations for the border deal continue as Republicans and Democrats in the Senate fail to reach an agreement for both border security and Ukraine aid.