How Is Texas Doing in Its Illegal Immigration Battle?

The liberty principle for this Freedom Friday concerns federalism. The federal government under various administrations has claimed power over immigration, but this may not be constitutional, according to this site: 

The United States Constitution creates a government of enumerated powers. The Constitution delegates to the United States Congress the power “[t]o establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization, … throughout the United States.” Thus, the Constitution gives Congress the power to determine which foreigners can become citizens, and under what conditions. The Constitution, however, is silent on immigration. That is, the federal government is not explicitly granted a general power to exclude or remove noncitizens from the United States.

Nevertheless, U.S. courts have allowed the federal government to exercise such a power. At various points in time (and in various U.S. Supreme Court cases), this power over immigration has been said to derive from various legal standings: the Commerce Clause, the Naturalization Clause, the Declaration of War Clause, the Law of Nations Clause, and the Necessary and Proper Clause, among others….

The above information is good to know when reading about current news. Illegal immigrants are flooding into Texas, and Texas officials have tried several methods to stop them. However, the federal government fought against every Texas effort.

One way that Texas tried to stop illegal immigrants was to spread barbed wire along the Rio Grande River to keep people from crossing into Texas. The wire worked until federal border officials cut the wire to let illegal immigrants to enter Texas.

The case went to court and a lower court ruled in November that federal agents could cut the wire to let illegal aliens into Texas. However, Texas appealed the ruling and won a round in its court battle against the Biden administration. Jack Davis reported the following at the Western Journal:  

“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 state had argued, according to Fox News.

Fox noted that border officials encountered a record 12,600 migrants at the southern border on Monday.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit issued an injunction against the federal government on Tuesday, ruling that while Texas’ appeal is in process, the wire it has strung can only be cut if there is a medical emergency.

While the federal government said Texas is interfering in immigration, a federal issue, the court did not agree, instead siding with Texas’ argument that the Biden administration should keep its hands off state property.

“The district court found that the Border Patrol exceeded its authority by cutting Texas’s c-wire fence for purposes other than a medical emergency, inspection, or detention. Moreover, the public interest supports clear protections for property rights from government intrusion and control,” the appeals court said.

The court said the injunction was necessary to protect Texas from the harm it would suffer if the Biden administration were allowed to continue cutting its wire as the case moves through the courts.

“The district court found Texas would suffer irreparable harm ‘in the form of loss of control and use of its private property.’ We see no error, clear or otherwise, in this finding,” the appeals court wrote.

The 29 miles of wire strung along the border is part of a multi-phase effort by the state to deter illegal immigration, which Gov. Greg Abbott has said is necessary because of the open-border policies of President Joe Biden.

Earlier this week, Abbott signed a law that makes crossing the border illegally a state crime. The law would jail illegal immigrants unless they agree to immediately go back to Mexico, The Texas Tribune reported.

“Biden’s deliberate inaction has left Texas to fend for itself,” Abbott said on Monday.

The appeals court recognized that Texas has the freedom to control and use its own property. Texans would not need to take matters into their own hands IF the federal government would control the flood of illegal immigrants crossing our borders at the rate of over 10,000 people per day. Since Biden became POTUS, more than ten million people have crossed the US border.  In other words, the number of illegal immigrants crossing our border in the last three years are more than the residents of the State of New Jersey (9,288,994). Our nation has grown by the size of an entire medium-size state because of the invading hordes crossing our border at Biden’s invitation!