By Daniel Wiessner
(Reuters) -A U.S. appeals court on Tuesday temporarily blocked the administration of President Joe Biden from destroying razor wire fencing that Texas placed along its border with Mexico to deter illegal border crossings.
The New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said a judge was wrong to rule that the U.S. government was immune from a lawsuit by Texas claiming a federal policy of removing the fencing was illegal.
The court ordered U.S. immigration authorities not to destroy the fencing while Texas appeals the judge’s ruling. The judge had refused to block the destruction of the fencing pending the outcome of the state’s lawsuit.
The office of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and the U.S. Department of Justice did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The concertina wire fencing was installed on private property along the Rio Grande river by the Texas National Guard as part of Operation Lone Star, which was launched by Republican Texas Governor Greg Abbott in 2021 to deter illegal border crossings.
The initiative has spurred a series of court cases, including a lawsuit filed on Tuesday challenging a new Texas law that allows state officials to arrest, prosecute, and deport people who illegally cross the border.
The state’s lawsuit over the razor wire claims U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents recently stepped up an existing practice of cutting, destroying or otherwise damaging fencing that the state had strategically placed on private land with landowners’ permission.
Last month, a federal judge criticized the Biden administration for its “utter failure” to prevent unlawful entry into the United States. But she said Texas had not shown that it had legal standing to challenge the federal government’s conduct.
The 5th Circuit on Tuesday said the judge had misinterpreted a law granting the U.S. government immunity from some legal claims by states, and that Texas was likely to prevail in its lawsuit.
“The public interest supports clear protections for property rights from government intrusion and control,” Circuit Judge Kyle Duncan wrote for the court.
(Reporting by Daniel Wiessner in Albany, New York; Editing by Leslie Adler, Alexia Garamfalvi and Bill Berkrot)
