Texas border security standoff: attorneys-general slam Joe Biden

Texas and Republican attorneys-general challenge Joe Biden’s federal border policies amid soaring illegal immigration rates.

Texas National Guard soldiers wait at the boat ramp where law enforcement enters the Rio Grande at Shelby Park last Friday. Picture: Getty Images

More than half the attorneys-general of US states have backed Texas in an emerging constitutional crisis over securing the border with Mexico, after Joe Biden said he would “shut down the border right now” if congress gave him the power.

Soaring and unprecedented rates of illegal immigration into the US, including 302,000 last month according to US officials, have prompted a standoff ­between the federal government and Texas after the state began putting up razor wire on its border against the wishes of the Biden administration.

The 26 Republican top state attorneys-general in a letter to the White House obtained by Fox News and the Daily Mail told the President to “get out of the way” in a confrontation that could end up in the Supreme Court after Texas Attorney-General Ken Paxton denied permission to federal officials to enter Shelby Park on the southern border.

“As lawyers yourselves, you must know that reports that Texas is ignoring or ‘defying’ the Supreme Court are wrong, either misunderstanding or deliberately misstating the law,” the letter read.

The Supreme Court last week ruled 5-4 to overturn a lower court’s decision that had banned federal immigration officials from cutting razor fencing that Texas had built along its border with Mexico, but declined from commenting on which set of officials had ultimate jurisdiction.

“Texas should be applauded for continuing to try to protect the border despite the federal government now, again, being able to try to ­destroy the barriers Texas builds,” the attorneys-general wrote.

Texas law enforcement's staging ground for military equipment and National Guard soldiers at Shelby Park in Eagle Pass. Picture: Getty Images

In a marked change of attitude over an issue that has raised ­voters’ concerns nationwide ahead of the November presidential election, Mr Biden said over the weekend that he would shut the border if congress passed new legislation that increasingly looks unlikely to pass the Republican-controlled House of Rep­resentatives.

“It’ll also give me, as President, the emergency authority to shut down the border until it could get back under control. If that bill were the law today, I’d shut down the border right now and fix it quickly,” he said.

Republicans disputed Mr Biden’s alleged need for new legislation to crack down on ­illegal immigration, citing his reversal of Trump administration policies by executive order in 2021 that forced applicants for asylum to remain in Mexico while their applications were heard.

“The President must start by using the broad legal authority he already possesses to reclaim our nation’s sovereignty and end the mass release of illegal aliens into our country,” Republican Speaker Mike Johnson said in a letter to the President last week.

The Texas National Guard under orders from Republican Governor Greg Abbott took control of Shelby Park near Eagle Pass, a popular crossing point into Texas, earlier this month, frustrated by what the state alleges are insufficient efforts by the federal government to stop the flow of illegal immigrants.

More than 778,000 people tried to cross illegally into the US in the last three months of 2023, according to US border officials, up from 218,000 in the same ­period in 2021, a surge that’s made immigration the top concern for 35 per cent of US voters, according to a January Harvard-Harris poll.

Former president Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee for president, has urged GOP members of congress to block an emerging deal ­between the two major parties to reform immigration law, which reportedly includes rules to automatically close the border once ­illegal arrivals reach 5000 a day.

“There is zero chance I will support this horrible open borders betrayal of America,” Mr Trump told supporters at a rally in Las Vegas on Saturday night.

His comments came amid ongoing attempts by Republicans to impeach Mr Biden’s Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas over his alleged refusal to implement US immigration law, charges Democrats have slammed as a sham, and which has no hope of passing the Senate.