The Supreme Court sided with the Biden administration on Monday and cleared the way for border patrol agents to remove razor wire Texas officials installed along a busy stretch of the southern border until the legality of the barriers is resolved in court.
The ruling, by a 5-4 vote, was a victory for the administration in the increasingly bitter dispute between the White House and Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas, an outspoken critic of President Joe Biden's border policy who has shipped busloads of migrants to northern cities.
Since 2021, Abbott, a third-term Republican, has mounted a multibillion-dollar campaign to impose measures at the border to deter migrants. Those include erecting concertina wire along the banks of the Rio Grande, installing a barrier of buoys in the river and enacting a sweeping law that allows state and local law enforcement to arrest migrants crossing from Mexico.
In lifting an appeals court ruling that had generally prohibited the administration from removing the wire while the court considers the case, the justices gave no reasons, which is typical when they act on emergency applications. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Amy Coney Barrett joined the court's three liberal members to form a majority.
The case is one of several legal battles between Abbott and the Biden administration over the governor's border crackdown, Operation Lone Star. It comes at a time of rising tension over how to handle hundreds of thousands of migrants who have entered the country illegally in recent months.
Even though immigration and border security matters are generally the purview of the federal government, Abbott has mobilized thousands of National Guard troops and lined the banks of the Rio Grande near Eagle Pass with razor wire to try to block illegal entries.
Lydia Guzmán, national immigration chair of the League of United Latin American Citizens, embraced the decision. "The Supreme Court ruling will help save lives at the U.S.-Mexico border if Gov. Abbott obeys the decision," she said in a statement. "Further, the action by the justices allows Congress to work bipartisanly to address the broken immigration system."
Earlier this month, federal officials said Texas National Guard personnel had blocked U.S. Border Patrol agents who were investigating reports of drowning migrants from a section of the Rio Grande where the state had placed the wire barriers. The bodies of three migrants, a woman and two children, were found in the river by Mexican authorities days later.
Texas sued the Biden administration last year to prevent agents from removing or cutting the wire barriers, which the federal government says prevent the agents from reaching migrants who have already entered U.S. territory.
A District Court judge sided with Texas in October, finding that the barriers limit illegal crossings that impose costs on the state. But the lower court later denied the state's request to preliminarily block Border Patrol agents from accessing the international border or disturbing the barrier while the litigation continued.
Texas appealed that ruling to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, which issued a temporary order prohibiting Border Patrol agents from cutting, damaging or moving the barriers. The Biden administration then asked the Supreme Court to intervene on an emergency basis.
Solicitor General Elizabeth B. Prelogar urged the justices to "restore Border Patrol's access to the border it is charged with patrolling and the migrants it is responsible for apprehending, inspecting, and processing."
U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials have been overwhelmed by the volume of migrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border. U.S. agents recorded nearly 250,000 illegal crossings along the southern border in December, the highest one-month total ever, according to preliminary CBP data obtained by The Washington Post.
The Biden administration told the justices last week that Texas officials had installed additional wire barriers that are preventing agents from accessing a boat ramp used to patrol a section of the river. The guard has installed its own gates with armed personnel to control entry to the area, the administration said.
In the Biden administration's emergency application, Prelogar rejected the contention that federal officials had done anything improper. "Border Patrol agents' exercise of discretion regarding the means of enabling the apprehension, inspection and processing of noncitizens in no way suggests that they cut wire for impermissible purposes," she wrote.
Calling the appeals court's injunction "manifestly wrong," Prelogar said the barrier interfered with Border Patrol agents' responsibilities.
"The injunction prohibits agents from passing through or moving physical obstacles erected by the state that prevent access to the very border they are charged with patrolling and the individuals they are charged with apprehending and inspecting," she wrote. "And it removes a key form of officer discretion to prevent the development of deadly situations, including by mitigating the serious risks of drowning and death from hypothermia or heat exposure."
The exception for medical emergencies was insufficient, Prelogar wrote. "It can take 10 to 30 minutes to cut through Texas' dense layers of razor wire," she wrote. "By the time a medical emergency is apparent, it may be too late to render lifesaving aid."
In filing their response, Texas officials said they were unaware of the border patrol's ongoing need to access the area and were investigating the claim. Texas Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton urged the Supreme Court to reject the Biden administration's view of federal power and not to intervene before the 5th Circuit has an opportunity to fully consider the case.
"Defendants have claimed authority to destroy property that belongs to someone else based on their assurance that doing so is necessary to enforce federal immigration laws," the state's Solicitor General Aaron L. Nielson said in court filings.
Federal officials say the sharp barriers have maimed and bloodied migrants at several locations and pose a hazard to U.S. agents. After border-crossers used blankets and other garments to try to protect themselves from lacerations while crawling under or over the barrier, federal authorities cut a path through the wire to allow safe passage.
That prompted the Texas lawsuit, which accused the federal government of destruction of property and trespass.
The 5th Circuit order, the administration says, prohibits officers from carrying out their regular patrol and apprehension duties -- and from intervening to prevent deadly situations, including drowning and death from hypothermia or heat exposure.
The order includes an exception that allows agents to cut the barrier in a medical emergency.
Information for this article was contributed by Ann E. Marimow and Nick Miroff of The Washington Post and Adam Liptak of The New York Times.