Appeals Court Pauses Ruling Allowing Feds To Cut Texas Border Wire

A federal appeals court has temporarily ruled in favor of border security — pausing a lower court’s ruling that allowed Border Patrol to remove barbed wire installed on the southern border by Texas authorities.

The decision was prompted by a lawsuit filed in late October by the State of Texas against the Biden administration over its practice of cutting Texas’ barbed wire border barrier.

“By cutting Texas’s concertina wire, 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 lawsuit alleged.

U.S. District Court Judge Alina Moses, who was appointed by former President George W. Bush (R) in 2002, initially refused to issue an injunction barring the Biden administration from dismantling the barbed wire on Wednesday — despite expressing criticism of the administration’s handling of the border.

In her ruling, Moses noted that the evidence “amply demonstrates the utter failure of the [Biden administration] to deter, prevent, and halt unlawful entry into the United States.”

“The law may be on the side of the Defendants and compel a resolution in their favor today, but it does not excuse their culpable and duplicitous conduct,” the judge added.

“The Defendants cannot claim the statutory duties they are so obviously derelict in enforcing as excuses to puncture the Plaintiff’s attempts to shore up the Defendants’ failing system,” Moses continued. “Nor may they seek judicial blessing of practices that both directly contravene those same statutory obligations and require the destruction of the Plaintiff’s property.”

Despite all of that criticism, the judge sided with the Biden administration.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) immediately appealed the decision, prompting the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals to issue an administrative stay on Monday that temporarily paused Moses’ ruling.

Paxton issued a statement in response to the temporary ruling.

“I am pleased the court recognized the extent of the federal government’s blatant and disturbing efforts to subvert law and order at our State’s border with Mexico,” the statement read. “This is an important step supporting Texas’s right to protect our citizens from Biden’s doctrine of open borders at any cost.”