Texas Responds to DOJ Legal Threat Over Anti-Illegal Immigration Measures
DOJ: Texas’s use of a floating river barrier ‘poses a risk to navigation, as well as public safety, in the Rio Grande River, and it presents a humanitarian crisis.’
Texas: ‘Texas will see you in court, Mr. President.’
UPDATE: The U.S. Department of Justice has filed a civil complaint against Texas. The complaint seeks an injunction prohibiting Texas from installing floating barriers in the Rio Grande River and an order requiring the state to remove those barriers already in place.
The U.S. Department of Justice threatened legal action against Texas over the state’s “unlawful construction of a floating barrier in the Rio Grande River.” The barriers are part of Texas’s Operation Lone Star, an anti-illegal immigration program Legal Insurrection has covered.
Shortly after receiving the threat, Abbott responded on his official Twitter account, vowing to continue Operation Lone Star and meet the threatened legal challenge in court:
Texas is stepping up to address this crisis.
We will continue to deploy every strategy to protect Texans and Americans — and the migrants risking their lives.
We will see you in court, Mr. President.
— Greg Abbott (@GregAbbott_TX) July 21, 2023
The letter gave Texas until “2:00 PM Eastern Time on July 24, 2023,” to “commit[] to expeditiously remove the floating barrier and related structures” or else face “legal action.” Texas announced its reply in a press release this morning.
In the reply letter, Texas Governor Greg Abbott reiterated his refusal to back down. Abbott reminded President Joe Biden of his failure to follow his “constitutional obligation to defend the States against invasion through faithful execution of federal laws.”
Abbott also countered the accusations in the DOJ letter
The DOJ letter accused Texas of violating the Rivers and Harbors Act. Texas allegedly violated the act by creating an “obstruction to the navigable capacity” of U.S. waters and failing to consult the Army Corps of Engineers before constructing the barriers.
Abbott’s letter challenges the DOJ’s interpretation of the Rivers and Harbors Act, claiming the law does not apply to the type of structures Texas has constructed.
The DOJ letter also alleges Texas’s anti-illegal immigration measures “raise humanitarian concerns.”
Abbott’s response notes he “share[s] the humanitarian concerns” expressed in the DOJ letter but directs the blame at Biden: “[Y]our open-border policies encourage migrants to risk their lives by crossing illegally through the water, instead of safely and legally at a port of entry. Nobody drowns on a bridge.”
The DOJ letter came shortly after an email, purportedly from a Texas trooper, accused some officials of ordering the use of “inhumane” procedures as part of Operation Lone Star, including the denial of water to illegal immigrants.
Abbott’s office vigorously denied these allegations:
All personnel assigned to Operation Lone Star are prepared to detect and respond to any individuals who may need water or medical attention. Operation Lone Star agency partners use verbal warnings and signage to direct migrants attempting to illegally cross from Mexico into Texas to use ports of entry to protect the lives of migrants, DPS troopers, and Texas National Guard soldiers.
The DOJ letter to Texas:
The Texas response to the DOJ:
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“All personnel assigned to Operation Lone Star are prepared to detect and respond to any individuals who may need water or medical attention. Operation Lone Star agency partners use verbal warnings and signage to direct migrants attempting to illegally cross from Mexico into Texas to use ports of entry to protect the lives of migrants, DPS troopers, and Texas National Guard soldiers.”
I maintain that any assistance should be done in the back of a military transport airplane that once full is en route to southern Mexico. Let them make the trek over and over until they give up.
The ones covered in tats claiming to be 14 you can drop off before you land.
Who said anything about landing?
I only had about three hours of on-the-ground parachute training before I made my first jump. It’s easy to teach people how to jump from a perfectly good airplane.
Jump training not required.
Substitute ‘coyote bus’ for ‘tank’.
Use a slightly oversized chute and be nice: attach a static line so the travelers can’t forget to pull the ripcord. And be extra nice, drop them in daylight over generally flat and hazard free terrain.
I like this part: “In the reply letter, Texas Governor Greg Abbott reiterated his refusal to back down. Abbott reminded President Joe Biden of his failure to follow his “constitutional obligation to defend the States against invasion through faithful execution of federal laws.”
Do your jobs competently and maybe we wouldn’t have to do stuff like this!
The Texas AG and various DAs in the state need to start indicting and arresting feral government officers who are orchestrating the invasion – up to and including Traitor Joe and his treasonous cabinet members.
This is the right thing to do.
Also, nobody ever asks the relevant question: How much does the Biden admin and Congress get in kickbacks from the cartels and the equally corrupt Mexican govt? Because we all know, if they weren’t profiting, this wouldn’t be happening.
Wow! Being anti-illegal gets you into trouble with DOJ!
Is is against the law to be anti-illegal?
It’s anti-Progressive to be anti-illegal.
That’s even more damning than the law in the eyes of their prophets and priests.
The regime needs to read Title 8 and Title 5.
Most of this regime can’t read, at all. Certainly not anything written in cursive.
What they can read, they can’t comprehend. What they can comprehend, they don’t care what it says or what it means.
DOJ is most cordially invited to sod off.
Rusty Bill, San Antonio
Garland: You’re violating the Waters and Harbors act 27B stroke 6.
Abbot: You’re violating the whole constitution, STFU.
Some law professors are urging Biden to ignore rulings of the “illegitimate, MAGA” SCOTUS, and to do as he pleases.
It would be interesting to see him do that, and then watch the fireworks when Gov. Abbott follows his lead and likewise ignores a federal court’s order to take down his barrier.
Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
Is the Rio Grande chartered on the U.S. inland waterways map? Not from what I see. Hence the weasel words that the Rio Grande is a navigable waterway “within” the meaning of the Rivers and Harbor Act.
If you remember, the government at once declared a puddle on your property to belong to the federal government and if I remember right, declared it a navigable body of water
Trump did away with that
Pretty sure the globe cartel got it back but maybe not
By the way, I HATE the back to the top button placement
What, you mean directly covering the submit button? That’s a feature, son, like a handgun waiting period.
YyyEeeSsss
SCOTUS did away with it this term by in essence ruling any claim of jurisdiction over a body of water had to be connected to an actual navigable waterway. So no more ‘hey this hole on your property fills up with rain water so now the feds can regulate it’.
Did that apply to the rule that was just issued in May (see below)?
In Sackett v EPA SCOTUS ruled this May that the Clean Water Act, which is where EPA gets its authority over the ‘waters of the USA’ ,was being too broadly applied by the Govt; an agency power grab IOW.
The money quote from the opinion was ‘the clean water act extends to (only those) wetlands with a continuous surface connection to bodies that are Waters of the United States in their own right so that they are indistinguishable from those waters’.
This opinion definitely undercuts the rule you reference b/c that rule was developed using the prior standard of a significant nexus while the opinion requires far more than a subjective ‘nexus’, it requires an actual objective surface water connection.
Here you go. This should keep you out of mischief for awhile.
You call it mischief, I call it fighting
«Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom, must, like me, undergo the fatigue of
supporting it.”
THOMAS PAINE
Didn’t read it, did you?
How many elections have you been fighting for the.d/prog v against them?
It isn’t all that navigable, except for maybe flatboats, canoes, small pleasure craft, etc. Too shallow, with sandbars. There have been agreements between the US and Mexico dealing with use of the river (and water – it supplies water to many communities near the river) for a century or more.
I was at the Rio Grande (in Texas) in late April, just as tributary creeks were starting to dry out, and daytime temps were just touching 100 degrees F. It’s not much of a river, and whether it’s “navigable” or not depends entirely on what class of vessels one proposes to navigate on it. It’s not just draft either, the river is quite narrow in places, and, of course, it’s less deep where it’s more wide and vice versa.
Which means you can float a narrow boat with substantial draft, or you can use one with less draft and more beam, but you can’t use either everywhere on the river! “Navigable” strikes me a vague. You would think there’s a “standard” boat that would be the type by which a waterway’s “navigability” is judged. Seeing there isn’t such a “type”, it’s possible to have a waterway that is navigable in some parts by one type of boat, but navigable only by another type of boat along some of the river’s length. This makes a mockery of the word “navigable.”
Yeah, that’s pretty much what I said, in far fewer words.
his “constitutional obligation to defend the States against invasion through faithful execution of federal laws.”
Not just through the immigration laws, but right there in the Constitution. If the federal gov’t fails in its constitutional obligations, then the state can and should reassert its sovereignty and do what is necessary. The federal gov’t has abdicated its role. PERIOD.
Which I have said in. Calls and letters to Abbott for z3 freaking years
By the way, that pic shows how the Rio flows into the gulf
Just walk across or swim a few yards
How long is z3 years? I only ask, because 3 years ago there was a different president; one who promised to build a”big beautiful wall” (and didn’t), and not long after he LOST, a Texas governor (who’s still in office), began taking active, aggressive measures to counter a federal government that was actively promoting illegal immigration
Exactly! The states don’t need the “invasion” excuse. They have equal responsibility with the central government to protect life, liberty, and property, so when the Feds are derelict states have every right (as in natural rights) to step in. The real test will be when federal judges side with the regime—then what? Some Red State has to step up and tell federal judges who try to shut down this legitimate defense of citizens where to stick its regime-supporting ruling.
an “obstruction to the navigable capacity” of U.S. waters
The only legal navigability of the Rio Grande would be down our side of the barrier. Any other navigation of those waters would be illegal.
failing to consult the Army Corps of Engineers
Given their failure to approve much of anything, this would be a dereliction of duty to the citizens of Texas to wait on them. (We’ve been waiting more than 25 years for approval of a new drawbridge over a canal here.)
“raise humanitarian concerns.”
That’s why they’re being put up.
Of course, I’m still wondering why they’re being directed to ports of entry. If they were going to come here legally they would already be going there. Just bag ’em, tag ’em, and send them home (and send the bill to their parent country). Just take care of the problem, already.
Yes enough of these humanitarian flights
They didn’t fly in let them walk back
I’ve got no problem with the flights. Turn them away at the border and they walk another hundred yards down the fence looking for a hole. Heck, I’ll even chip in for peanuts for the trip.
But what if they have peanut allergies?! You inhumane bigot! Reeeee!!!
/prog
Wrong place but it is a body of water and a call did come from a dent who hates America
Is this Reggie Love?
The body of an unidentified black male, aged 43, was found this morning after an overnight search for a missing paddleboarder in the marsh pond behind the Martha’s Vineyard home of President Barack Obama.
Apparently, a call for search and rescue units came from the Obama home last night, and the body was located in 8′ of water this morning.
VIA DAILY MAIL – […] A massive joint-agency search resumed Monday morning for the African American male who was last seen wearing all black without a lifejacket, MV Times reported.
His paddle board and hat were recovered Sunday – and his body was found in the eight-foot-deep waters approximately 100 feet away from shore at 10am Monday. The dispatch address for the incident came from Obama’s Martha’s waterfront Vineyard home. It is unclear if the former president, 61, is currently staying at the estate.
[…] Massachusetts State Police said: ‘Shortly before 10 AM the body of the missing paddle boarder was recovered from Edgartown Great Pond by Massachusetts State Police divers.
‘MSP Underwater Recovery Unit divers made the recovery after the victim’s body was located by a Massachusetts Environmental Police Officers deploying side-scan sonar from a boat.
‘As previously noted, the victim is a 43-year-old male. His name is not being released at this time; we expect to release his name later today.
‘The recovery was made approximately 100 feet from shore at a depth of about eight feet.
‘The investigation into the fatality is being conducted by the State Police Detective Unit for the Cape and Islands District and Edgartown Police.’ (read more)
It’s Martha’s Vineyard. The whitest place in the USA.
How many black males not related to Barack Obama are on the Island?
🤔 Reggie Love?
“the African American male who was last seen wearing all black without a lifejacket”
Bond.
Jamal Bond.
I like that
Frighteningly, Reggie Love is exactly 43.
Is there a significance to that number
Besides being young?
Obama was the 43 rd , cough, illegally presented as the President of the United States!!!
I see what you are doing there
Late last night I saw a news piece that identified the man as the Obamas’ personal chef, who had worked for them previously at the White House. I don’t recall the name, but it was not Reggie Love.
I know, it was “speculation “
Wired though, the 2 are the same age and this guy there are pictures of him learning to swim , I think at the WH? Do they still have a pool?
He must of panicked
Jr is that you lol
ABbot needs to declare a sate of martial law in Texas. The, Texas need to arrest and deport any and all federal officials and employees who in any manner faclitate the invasion of th estate by illegals. This includes any federal judge who attempts to interfere.
as the duly-elected chief executive of texas, abbot’s duty / responsibility regarding the defense of our state’s southern border (and jointly the common border for millions of our fellow americans) is crystal clear and explicit–regardless of any effort by some over-reaching federal agency(or even some “chief executive”) abbot’s obligations to his fellow texans remain–no dubious “definitions” or legal legerdemain can absolve him of his lawful obligations thereof–attempts by fjb or his minions to prevent abbots’s lawful exercise of his responsibilities seems unconstitutional in the least and (given fjb’s three-year demonstration) more akin to outright treason on fjb’s part
after three years, abbot is finally telling fjb what should have been stated years ago
good on him
Exactly, I don’t know how many letters and calls I made to him about this…
Hmm was 7 million the sweet spot?