Texas hit back at the Biden administration on Wednesday, informing the Department of Homeland Security that the Lone Star State would not comply with a demand letter insisting that the state allow federal border authorities into Shelby Park – a hotbed of illegal border crossings.
Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott cordoned off the Eagle Pass park last week – erecting a fence to keep out citizens and federal border agents – as part of his emergency declaration to combat the immigration crisis.
“Because the facts and the law are on Texas’ side, the State will continue to use its constitutional authority to defend its territory, and I will continue to defend its legitimate efforts in court,” Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton wrote in a letter to DHS Attorney General Jonathan Meyer.
“The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) should stop wasting its limited time and resources suing Texas, and start enforcing the immigration laws that Congress already has,” he added.
The Texas National Guard stands behind a gate at Shelby Park in Eagle Pass, Texas, on January 13, 2024. Adam Davis/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock A newly established Texas National Guard patrol station sits behind new razor blades and concertina wire in Shelby Park, on the US-Mexico border in Eagle Pass, Texas, on January 16, 2024. REUTERS
Paxton’s protest follows a Jan. 14 cease-and-desist notice sent by the Biden administration demanding that the country stop preventing US Border Patrol agents from accessing about two and a half miles of the US-Mexico border along Shelby Park, which borders the Rio Grande.
“Your letter misstates both the facts and the law in demanding that Texas surrender to President Biden’s open border policy,” Paxton claimed, adding that the statement “betrays a lack of understanding on the ground about what happened in Shelby Park. “
The White House and DHS on Saturday accused Texas officials of preventing Border Patrol agents from trying to provide emergency aid to three immigrants – a woman and two children – who drowned near Shelby Park the night before.
National Guard soldiers stand guard on the banks of the Rio Grande River at Shelby Park on January 12, 2024, in Eagle Pass, Texas. Getty Images
The Biden administration, however, has acknowledged that the three migrants died at least an hour before the Border Patrol requested access to the park.
The Justice Department said in a filing with the Supreme Court on Tuesday that Mexican officials told the Border Patrol at 9 p.m. local time that the migrants had drowned at 8 p.m., but that two additional migrants were “in distress” on the US side of the Rio Grande.
The two migrants were rescued by Mexican officials and found to be suffering from hypothermia.
The DOJ argued that federal agents might have been able to locate the drowned immigrants if they had access to the park.
A National Guard soldier stands guard at the gates of Shelby Park which is now used as an operations center in Eagle Pass, Texas, January 17, 2024. REUTERS
“It is impossible to say what might have happened if the Border Patrol had had access to the area in the first place — including through its surveillance trucks that helped monitor the area,” the filing said. “However, at the very least, the Border Patrol will have the opportunity to take whatever steps are available to fulfill its responsibilities and assist its counterparts in the Mexican government in conducting rescue missions. Texas makes it impossible.”
In his letter, Paxton called it “despicable” and “completely inaccurate” to blame Texas for the tragic death.
“Contrary to your letter, [the Texas Military Department] does not prevent the US Border Patrol from entering Shelby Park to attempt to rescue migrants in distress,” the attorney general wrote. “The federal agents at the gate don’t have a boat, and they’re not asking for entry based on any medical need.”
Concertina wire, placed by the Texas National Guard, is installed around the perimeter of a pit previously used to detain migrants at Shelby Park, on the US-Mexico border in Eagle Pass, Texas, January 16, 2024. REUTERS
“Instead, federal agents told the TMD staff sergeant that Mexican officials had found the body and the situation was under control,” he added. “Texas’s Guardsmen however made a diligent search, only to confirm that Mexican officials had found the bodies of the migrants, downriver from the Shelby Park boat ramp and on their side of the river.”
The Texas governor also weighed in on Wednesday, tweeting that “Biden clearly wrongly blames Texas for deaths in Rio Grande.”
“As a federal judge has ruled, Biden & DHS ‘created a perverse incentive’ for immigrants to make dangerous illegal crossings,” Abbott added. “Biden is to blame for the drowning.”
Categories: Trending
Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
