'Texas will see you in court,' Abbott tells President Biden over border buoys
In a hostile letter to President Joe Biden, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott rebuked the Department of Justice's threat to sue Texas over the buoy barriers he ordered into the Rio Grande River and welcomed a federal lawsuit.
AUSTIN (Nexstar) -- In a hostile letter to President Joe Biden, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott rebuked the Department of Justice's threat to sue Texas over the buoy barriers he ordered into the Rio Grande River and welcomed a federal lawsuit.
"Texas will see you in court, Mr. President," Abbott wrote Friday. "The fact is, if you would just enforce the immigration laws Congress already has on the books, America would not be suffering from your record-breaking level of illegal immigration."
The open hostility between Austin and Washington D.C. ignited over the thousand feet of floating barriers that Abbott ordered into the Rio Grande earlier this month. The bright-orange buoys are floating in the river just outside Eagle Pass, a border city that has seen about 270,000 encounters with migrants this year.
The Department of Justice on Friday warned Texas the state does not have the authority to erect such a barrier in international waters or attempt to enforce federal immigration laws.
“The State of Texas’ actions violate federal law, raise humanitarian concerns, present serious risks to public safety and the environment, and may interfere with the federal government’s ability to carry out its official duties,” the department wrote.
The department specifically cited the federal Rivers and Harbors Act, which prohibits obstructing navigable waters.
Abbott took issue with the DOJ's legal justification on Monday.
"Your lawyers’ claim that Texas’s floating marine barriers violate Section 10 of the Rivers and Harbors Act misses the mark," he wrote. "That statute does not describe any action by the State of Texas."
Abbott also cited Arizona v. United States, a 2012 Supreme Court case that delineated federal and state jurisdiction over immigration, to assert Texas' "sovereign interest in protecting [her] borders."
The DOJ gave Texas a deadline of 2 p.m. Monday to commit to removing the barriers. With no such commitment, "the United States intends to file legal action."