DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Palus Politicus Build That Wall some more!

I'm not the one who is so ignorant they don't know the difference between immigration policy and immigration law. And not only that, you don't even care enough to learn the difference between the two.

I'm starting to think he is Joe Biden. The mental acuity is quite similar lately.

NOBODY cares about the difference. You've stated it in 139 posts. It's your way of avoiding any actual conversation concerning Sleepy Joe's Border Disaster.

And you posted two links claiming he wasn't enforcing immigration laws when none of it was immigration laws. Maybe when it finally sinks into that brain of yours that those two things aren't the same I won't have to keep trying to teach it to you and Eve.

Unlike you I know you aren't trump. You spell better than he does. But you've certainly turned yourself into a trump wannabe.

Stop lying dude. You refuse to acknowledge that Biden's immigration policy has opened the border wide open.

What part of I don't like some of his policies and that they have added to the problem can't you comprehend? If you weren't so sad you would be hilarious.

Finally you took the L. Now I can do other things.

You said that earlier when I explained it before. Short term memory loss?

Hmmm... seems like Border Patrol likes the razor wire. Now what, Joe? Deadline has come and passed... nothing?

Sleepy Joe won't do anything because he knows it will cost him the election.

I'd say this whole thing will blow up in his face, but he has State TV on his side. All the lefty wingnuts will toe the line and sweep this whole episode of Joe's Border Catastrophe under the rug.



Border Patrol has 'no plans' to remove razor wire set up by Texas amid feud with Biden admin

Adam Shaw, Griff Jenkins
Fri, January 26, 2024 at 4:05 PM EST·3 min read


Border Patrol has "no plans" to remove razor wire placed by Texas along the southern border, a senior Customs and Border Protection (CBP) official told Fox News on Friday, stressing a "strong" relationship with Texas despite an ongoing legal battle between the state and the administration.

Texas is currently locked in a multi-pronged legal fight with the federal government over the security of the Texas-Mexico border. The federal government has threatened legal action over Texas’ recent seizure of Shelby Park near Eagle Pass, while lawsuits are ongoing over the administration’s cutting of razor wire set up by Texas and the establishment of buoys in the Rio Grande. Texas has declared that it has a right to "self-defense" against what it says is a migrant "invasion."

On Monday, the Supreme Court found in the administration's favor when it granted an emergency appeal to allow agents to keep cutting border wire set up by Texas after a lower court had blocked such moves. Texas has continued to fortify the border, and has also indicated it will not comply with the administration’s demands for it to vacate the Shelby Park area.

"[President Biden's] actions have caused an unprecedented invasion that we must defend against," Abbott said on Thursday.

The Biden administration has said that Texas is interfering with the federal enforcement of immigration law.

"Enforcement of immigration law is a federal responsibility," a DHS spokesperson said this week. "Rather than helping to reduce irregular migration, the State of Texas has only made it harder for frontline personnel to do their jobs and to apply consequences under the law. We can enforce our laws and administer them safely, humanely, and in an orderly way."

Dozens of Republican governors have backed Texas as the feud between the state and the feds escalates. But a senior CBP official told Fox that the relationship between Texas and Border Patrol officials on the ground is "strong."

"While this issue plays out in the courts, the relationship between Border Patrol, Texas DPS [Department of Public Safety], & TMD [Texas Military Dept.] remains strong," the official said. "Our focus is and will always be the mission of protecting this country and its people. On the ground, we continue to work alongside these valuable partners in that endeavor."

"Bottom line: Border Patrol has no plans to remove infrastructure (c-wire) placed by Texas along the border. Our posture remains the same. If we need to access an area for emergency response, we will do so. When that happens, we will coordinate with Texas DPS & TMD"

That sentiment was echoed by the Border Patrol union, which in a lengthy statement dismissed the idea that Border Patrol agents could start arresting Texas National Guard members.

"TX NG and rank-and-file BP agents work together and respect each other's jobs. Period. If TX NG members have LAWFUL orders, then they have to carry out those orders," the National Border Patrol Council said on X, formerly known as Twitter.

"Rank-and-file BP agents appreciate and respect what TX has been doing to defend their state in the midst of this catastrophe that the Biden Admin has unleashed on America," the statement said. "We want to be perfectly clear, there is no fight between rank-and-file BP agents and the TX NG, Gov. Abott, or TX DPS. It may make flashy headlines, but it simply isn't true."

https://news.yahoo.com/border-patrol-no-plans-remove-210503964.html

I guess the senate is going forward anyway-they may get mean tweeted at. Hopefully it will actually start to move forward in the near future.


Win McNamee/Getty Images
Senate negotiators have agreed to empower the US to significantly restrict illegal migrant crossings at the southern border, according to sources familiar with the matter, a move aimed at ending the migrant surge that has overrun federal authorities over the past several months.

The Senate deal, which is expected to be unveiled as soon as next week, would also speed up the asylum process to consider cases within six months – compared with the current system, under which it could take up to 10 years for asylum seekers.

The details provide a new window into high-profile negotiations that have been going on for months – as Senate leaders hold out hope they can attach the deal to aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan as domestic and international crises loom. The plan would also put pressure on Republicans to decide whether to greenlight these new authorities or reject the plan as former President Donald Trump has urged the GOP to defeat anything short of what he calls a “perfect” bill.

President Joe Biden, in a rare statement on ongoing congressional negotiations, said the deal that Senate negotiators have worked toward is both tough and fair.

“What’s been negotiated would – if passed into law – be the toughest and fairest set of reforms to secure the border we’ve ever had in our country,” he said in the statement Friday. “It would give me, as President, a new emergency authority to shut down the border when it becomes overwhelmed. And if given that authority, I would use it the day I sign the bill into law.”

Under the soon-to-be-released package, the Department of Homeland Security would be granted new emergency authority to shut down the border if daily average migrant encounters reach 4,000 over a one-week span. If migrant crossings increase above 5,000 on average per day on a given week, DHS would be required to close the border to migrants crossing illegally not entering at ports of entry. Certain migrants would be allowed to stay if they prove to be fleeing torture or persecution in their countries.

Moreover, if crossings exceed 8,500 in a single day, DHS would be required to close the border to migrants illegally crossing the border. Under the proposal, any migrant who tries to cross the border twice while it is closed would be banned from entering the US for one year.

The goal of the trio of negotiators – GOP Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma, Independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona and Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut – is to prevent surges that overwhelm federal authorities. The Biden administration and Senate leaders have been heavily involved in the talks, and more details of the deal are expected to be released in the coming days.

In December alone, there were over 300,000 migrant encounters. The source said if the new legislation were in effect, the border would be shut down now to illegal migrants. Another source familiar with the matter said that certain migrants would be allowed to stay if they show they are fleeing persecution — and that there would still be a minimum of 1,400 asylum applications that could be processed though legal ports of entry while the emergency authorities are in effect.

https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/26/politics/senate-deal-shutdown-border/index.html

Speaking of build that wall....

Steve Bannon Admits Bank Account May Have Evidence of Fraud
January 26, 2024in News, Politics
Steve Bannon Admits Bank Account May Have Evidence of Fraud


After failing to pay his lawyer nearly half a million dollars, he’s now clambering to halt a review of his personal finances—a situation that’s forcing him to admit something quite embarrassing: that there might be evidence of his border wall fraud scheme in his bank documents.


The conspiracy-spewing right-wing political agitator had the gall to stiff his lawyer, former federal prosecutor Robert “Bob” Costello, who stuck by him for years. Specifically, Costello was Bannon’s lawyer on a number of cases, including when he faced criminal charges for pocketing donor funds intended for a privately funded border wall between the United States and Mexico. So it was only a matter of time before the law firm of Davidoff Hutcher and Citron came knocking with a lawsuit, one that quickly resulted in a judge ordering Bannon to hand over the overdue $480,487.

But now, that miserly mistake is coming back to haunt him.

Bannon has asked a New York state judge to block Costello’s law firm from perusing through his bank statements and reviewing his assets, a request that has required Bannon to awkwardly concede that his personal finances likely have evidence that could bolster the Manhattan District Attorney’s case against him.

“DHC’s taking of post-judgment discovery from Mr. Bannon poses a significant risk of compromising Mr. Bannon’s Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination,” Bannon’s current defense attorney, Harlan Protass, said in a court filing earlier this month.

Protass also argued that subjecting Bannon to questions under oath from the aggrieved law firm’s attorneys “also poses a significant risk” for the same reason: he might say something damning that could bolster two ongoing criminal cases against him.

Bannon, who helped coordinate a key part of former President Donald Trump’s undemocratic plot to stay in power after losing the 2020 election, refused to testify about his so-called “Green Bay Sweep” to congressional investigators. As Bannon’s lawyer, Costello ran interference when the House Jan. 6 Committee issued a subpoena ordering the MAGA media figure to testify—and represented him when the Department of Justice followed up with criminal charges. Bannon was convicted by a Washington jury in 2022, but he remains out of prison while he appeals the judgment.

Then the Manhattan DA, who keeps reviving federal criminal cases that faltered during the Trump administration, developed a criminal case against Bannon over his involvement in “We Build the Wall”—a scammy, xenophobic project that raised crowdfunded money to purportedly build a privately sponsored border wall. The U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York criminally charged Bannon and his business partners over the ordeal in 2020, but the one-time Trump White House chief strategist managed to score a pardon from his former boss.

That pardon, however, didn’t stop Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg Jr. from going after Bannon for breaking state laws in 2022. That case is set for trial in May.

Bannon bizarrely ghosted his own lawyers when the DA’s case got rolling in January 2023, the first signs that he was worsening his own situation. And his refusal to pay Costello seemed like a particularly stinging insult, given that Costello found himself on the wrong end of an FBI surveillance effort for working with Bannon.

Meanwhile, Bannon is louder than ever—outright rejecting the American democratic system on his War Room podcast and calling for a vengeful and violence-laden dictatorial return for Trump in the White House—even as his legal woes are mounting.

Last year, federal law enforcement indicted a major Bannon benefactor, the billionaire Guo Wengui, for enriching himself by allegedly defrauding a Chinese-American community of anti-communist dissidents. Earlier this month, a superseding indictment claims that several businesses that Bannon founded with Guo, including the social media app Gettr, were actually part of a criminal enterprise.

And that’s where Bannon’s ill-fated decision to stiff Costello comes in.

In November, one of Costello’s colleagues at the firm sent Gettr a subpoena demanding that a company officer there answer questions about Bannon’s involvement with the company—details that Bannon is now admitting could cause him legal peril in ongoing criminal cases.

Joseph N. Polito, a senior counsel at the firm, sent Gettr a questionnaire asking how Bannon has been paid by the company since the start of 2021, how exactly he owns any share of the company, and even whether he operates through cut-outs and “aliases.”

Costello’s law firm has sent legal demands to the political consulting firm Winning Republican Strategies, the War Room LLC that Bannon uses to operate his podcast, and others tied to the right-wing agitator. According to court filings, Costello’s law firm sent several restraining notices—legal instruments that formally require an entity to stop paying someone—in its ongoing attempt to put Bannon through a financial colonoscopy.

Both sides have agreed to slow down this ongoing feud until mid-February while they trade legal arguments back and forth.

Neither Protass nor Polito immediately responded to requests for comment.

https://dnyuz.com/2024/01/26/steve-bannon-admits-bank-account-may-have-evidence-of-fraud/

That has something to do with the border?

As far as the deal... weakAF.

"migrant who tries to cross the border twice while it is closed would be banned from entering the US for one year." How 'bout banned for LIFE. All this weak language is the biggest part of the problem. Everything is a slap on the wrist and a ride to your favorite city.

And this 5000, 8500 b.s... If this is language that turns the border into a turnstile at 2 million per year, no way in hell I vote for it.

I guess you keep thinking what "somebody likes" or what "somebody feel" means more than a SCOTUS ruling. That's how it works when they think their feelings mean more than the law. At that point they'll endorse criminal behavior and defying the law. It just depends on what laws are being broken and who is breaking them.

Let's just see if your puppet enforces the SCOTUS ruling.

YOU seem to ignore that all the BP have basically say they want no part of his games.

And that's a convenient way to phrase a SCOTUS ruling to suit an agenda. It isn't a Biden game. Say it slowly..... "It's the law of the land settled by a ruling of the SCOTUS."

Speaking of ignoring something.

GOP senator: ‘Immoral’ to kill border deal to help Trump

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) argued it is “immoral” for Republicans to reject a border deal to help former President Trump.

“I didn’t come here to have the president as a boss or a candidate as a boss. I came here to pass good, solid policy,” Tillis said Thursday, first reported by NBC News. “It is immoral for me to think you looked the other way because you think this is the linchpin for President Trump to win.”

Members on both sides of the aisle are upset with Trump’s attempt to kill the border deal to deny President Biden a legislative win. His recent remarks calling for GOP members to oppose a border deal that isn’t H.R. 2 have complicated things for the Senate.

With two solid wins for Trump in Iowa and New Hampshire and a path toward becoming the Republican presidential nominee, Trump’s allies in the Senate are attempting to kill the border package. That could endanger future aid for Ukraine in its war against Russia, which has been tied to such a deal.

The White House and the Biden administration officials got involved in negotiations in mid-December. Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) argued that the Biden administration is “probably feeling the heat” from the public and wants to address the border issue as Biden ramps up his reelection efforts.

Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) called the effort to kill the bill “appalling.” Romney argued that there is an issue at the southern border and anyone running for president should be attempting to solve it now — instead of solving it later and taking credit for it down the road.

Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) has reportedly floated the idea of separating the border and Ukraine sections of Biden’s request, but others say McConnell will stand behind pairing the border aid with other foreign aid.

https://thehill.com/homenews/senate...mn6mA4KpDc5VELEi5Yd1pHac1pK7TX0EliayM83c

https://www.dailywire.com/news/abbo...from-invasion-supersedes-all-federal-law

I heard 22 states are aligning with Texas and will help provide National Guard

He’s a gutless pig. I’d love to kick his ass..

He is standing up to the feds. Thats basically the opposite of gutless pig.

How?

Because OCDC doesn't like him. He's about to go down and knock him right out of that wheelchair.

Ok, I guess if states don’t have to follow SCOTUS rulings then states can disregard the SCOTUS Roe ruling or states like Colorado can disregard a future ruling that comes from SCOTUS regarding trump and the 14th amendment case

You are confused. He is defying a SCOTUS ruling. He's refusing to follow the law. A majority conservative SCOTUS at that. Of course the rule of law doesn't mean anything to your kind anymore.

PLEASE show me where BP has tried to remove razor wire?

Then how has he defied SCOTUS ruling?

I'll wait.

Of course they value the rule of law. But only when they can use it to impose their will on others.
When it comes to actually following the law, well that just won't do

Facing 91 criminal counts and being the runaway front runner in the presidential nomination for the Republican party explains everything you need to know about that.

It sure does! Especially if you dig a little and do some actual thinking.

Is 91 the wrong number? Oh, and BTW, I thought you said that Republicans first wanted to see the immigration bill before they decided whether they would vote for or against it? You know, the deal they haven't even hammered out yet? It seems trump thinks it's already written and he has given his marching orders to stop it. So much for your theory that they wanted to read the bill first.

Just Clicking.

This is simple, SCOTUS has ruled that the wire needs removed. Anyone disputing that?

If nobody is disputing that, then the Party of Law and Order isn't really the party of law and order and should be treated lawless.

Eisenhower had a similar situation he had to deal with. He ended up sending in troops to settle it.

What the hell is it with all those people that seem to think it's ok to ignore SCOTUS rulings?

I bet if the ruling came down in Abbots favor they'd all be delighted.

They only agree with SCOTUS rulings that suit their beliefs. Otherwise they support ignoring them and making excuses why they should fight against the rule of law.

I'm not confused. I know he is defying a SCOTUS ruling. He is saying his state has the right to protect it's borders from invasion. He might be in the wrong, but if the Feds won't help then he will do what he has to do. 25 other state governors agree with him and are willing to send national guard to help.

It will be interesting to see what happens.

If you can't see how they're playing politics with the border issue I can't help you.

The legal fight over whether Texas can seize control of the border, explained

The Constitution gives the Biden administration nearly exclusive authority over matters of immigration. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott wants the courts to change that.

Last Monday, the Supreme Court made its first foray into a longstanding conflict over who is in charge of the United States-Mexico border: the United States government or Texas’s Republican Gov. Greg Abbott.

In a 5–4 decision, the Court temporarily permitted federal officials to cut razor wire barriers set up by the Texas government, which had prevented US Border Patrol agents from entering an area where immigrants sometimes cross into the United States. This decision, moreover, came in one of several disputes between Texas and the United States over border policy — with many GOP-led states now backing Abbott.

Under existing law, it is well established that the federal government is in charge of nearly all questions of immigration policy and may override state immigration policies that conflict with its goals. As the Supreme Court said in Arizona v. United States (2012), “[I]t is fundamental that foreign countries concerned about the status, safety, and security of their nationals in the United States must be able to confer and communicate on this subject with one national sovereign, not the 50 separate States.”

But it is unclear whether the current Supreme Court, with its 6–3 Republican supermajority, will honor this longstanding balance of power between the national government and the states, which has been in place at least as far back as the Court’s 1941 decision in Hines v. Davidowitz.

Though the Court’s Monday order in Department of Homeland Security v. Texas was a victory for the Biden administration, it was also an ominous sign that many of the justices are eager to shift power away from the federal government — and toward state officials like Abbott, who are eager to impose more draconian enforcement policies.

The case involved an extraordinary attack on the federal government’s primacy over immigration. Texas erected razor wire barriers along a river in Eagle Pass, Texas, that physically prevented federal Border Patrol agents from entering the area, processing migrants in those areas, or providing assistance to drowning victims. According to the DOJ, the Border Patrol was unable to aid an “unconscious subject floating on top of the water” because of these barriers.

[b]Federal law, moreover, provides that Border Patrol agents may “have access to private lands, but not dwellings, for the purpose of patrolling the border to prevent the illegal entry of aliens into the United States.” So Texas claimed the power to use razor wire to prevent federal officers from performing their duties, in direct violation of a federal statute. Nevertheless, four justices dissented from the Court’s order allowing the Border Patrol to cut the razor wire when necessary to do their jobs.

This dispute over razor wire is one of at least three ongoing legal disputes between Texas and the United States over who controls the border. The Biden administration also sued Texas, in a case known as United States v. Abbott, seeking to remove a 1,000-foot floating barrier Texas erected in the Rio Grande near Eagle Pass. At least one body was found trapped in this barrier.

Meanwhile, a third case, United States v. Texas, challenges a Texas state law that purports to give state judges the power to issue deportation orders. That law will take effect in early March unless a court intervenes.

At least two of these lawsuits — the razor wire case and the challenge to the state-authorized deportations — should be slam dunks for the federal government under decisions like Arizona and Hines. But Republicans have long railed against federal primacy in the immigration space. And, as the narrow vote in the razor wire case suggests, many of the GOP-appointed justices appear to have embraced their political party’s stance on this issue.

Why the federal government has virtually exclusive authority over immigration

So why do states play such a diminished role in immigration policy? A partial answer can be found in the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause, which states that federal law and federal treaty obligations “shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding.”

This is why the Homeland Security case — the razor wire case recently decided by the Supreme Court — should have been a clear-cut victory for the federal government. There is a federal law explicitly stating that Border Patrol agents may enter other people’s land “for the purpose of patrolling the border to prevent the illegal entry of aliens into the United States.” Under the Constitution, that law is supreme over any state law or policy.

This principle, that federal law overcomes state law when the two conflict, is known as “preemption,” and preemption is particularly strong in the immigration context. As the Supreme Court held in Hines, preemption in immigration cases extends not just to federal laws that explicitly conflict with those in a state, but also to any area where Congress has enacted a “complete scheme of regulation” governing an aspect of US immigration policy.

Hines involved a Pennsylvania law that required non-citizens 18 years of age or older to register with the state, “receive an alien identification card and carry it at all times,” and to present this card upon demand to police officers and other state officials. At the time, federal law also required non-citizen immigrants to register with the federal government, but the federal law did not provide for ID cards or specify many of the requirements imposed by the Pennsylvania regime.

In striking down this Pennsylvania law, the Court warned that states must play an exceedingly limited role in immigration policy because of the risk that a single state could damage US relations with other nations. “One of the most important and delicate of all international relationships,” Hines explained, “has to do with the protection of the just rights of a country’s own nationals when those nationals are in another country.” The Court added that “international controversies of the gravest moment, sometimes even leading to war, may arise from real or imagined wrongs” inflicted on the citizens of one nation by another.

That does not mean that the United States must treat every single foreign national with caution or deference. But it does mean that, if the United States decides to risk an international incident by treating a foreign national harshly, that decision should come from a government that is accountable to the entire American people — and not just to the people of one state.

“The Federal Government, representing as it does the collective interests of the forty-eight states, is entrusted with full and exclusive responsibility for the conduct of affairs with foreign sovereignties,” the Court said in an opinion that was handed down before Alaska and Hawaii became states. Thus, “for national purposes, embracing our relations with foreign nations, we are but one people, one nation, one power.”

One corollary to this rule of federal supremacy, Hines also held, is that comprehensive federal regulation over immigration-related matters preempts state regulation that touches on similar matters, even if the federal law does not explicitly say that state laws are preempted. In the Court’s words,

where the federal government, in the exercise of its superior authority in this field, has enacted a complete scheme of regulation and has therein provided a standard for the registration of aliens, states cannot, inconsistently with the purpose of Congress, conflict or interfere with, curtail or complement, the federal law, or enforce additional or auxiliary regulations.

The same rule should apply to the not-yet-in-effect Texas law permitting state courts to issue deportation orders. Just like the Pennsylvania registration scheme at issue in Hines, Texas is stepping into an area that Congress has comprehensively regulated with its law allowing state courts to order deportations. Federal law provides for a network of immigration officials and specialized courts that determine which immigrants may remain in the United States and which ones must be deported. Texas may neither “curtail or complement” these courts with its own state-level immigration system.

Nevertheless, state laws seeking to undermine Hines now seem likely to arise whenever a Democrat is in the White House. The 2012 Arizona case involved such a state law, known as SB 1070, which sought to “discourage and deter the unlawful entry and presence of aliens” by giving state police new authority to arrest and detain individuals they had “probable cause to believe ... has committed any public offense that makes the person removable from the United States.”

Yet while the Supreme Court in 2012 was quite conservative, it did not bite on this effort to undercut Hines and instead blocked several key provisions of SB 1070. Arizona was a 5–3 decision, with Republican appointees Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Anthony Kennedy crossing over to vote with three liberal justices (Justice Elena Kagan, a liberal Obama appointee, was recused from the case).

Texas’s deportation law is probably best understood as an attempt to relitigate the Arizona case, but to do it with a much more conservative, and much more partisan, Supreme Court. Since 2012, Kennedy left the Court and was replaced by Trump-appointee Brett Kavanaugh — a fairly hardline conservative who dissented from the recent Homeland Security order. Meanwhile, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a liberal feminist icon, died in 2020 and was replaced by conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett (though Barrett, it is worth noting, joined the majority in Homeland Security).

If Hines is overruled or undermined, in other words, it will not happen because of any change in American law or the Constitution. Rather, it will happen solely because the Court’s personnel has changed — and the new justices tend to vote with the Republican Party.
Texas’s arguments in the floating barrier case are less frivolous than their arguments in the other two cases

Hines is much less of a factor in the Abbott case, the one challenging the floating barrier blocking a stretch of the Rio Grande, because that case turns not on an immigration law but on a federal statute intended to keep major American waterways unobstructed.

The floating barrier at the heart of the Abbott case, according to two federal judges who ruled against Texas in this case, “is roughly 1,000 feet long, made up of large four-foot orange buoys fastened together with heavy metal cables and anchored in place with concrete blocks placed systematically on the floor of the Rio Grande.” It also features “a stainless-steel mesh ‘anti-dive net’ extending two feet into the water.”

This barrier appears to be responsible for at least one death by drowning — an unidentified victim who most likely was a migrant attempting to cross the southern border into the United States

The federal government challenges this barrier not under a federal immigration law but under a statute providing that “the creation of any obstruction not affirmatively authorized by Congress, to the navigable capacity of any of the waters of the United States is prohibited,” and forbidding the construction of any “wharf, pier, dolphin, boom, weir, breakwater, bulkhead, jetty, or other structures” in a “navigable river ... of the United States” without approval from the Army Corps of Engineers.

This case was previously heard by a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, a far-right court that frequently acts as a rubber stamp for legal theories offered by MAGA litigants. The three Fifth Circuit judges initially assigned to this case, however, included two Democrats and one Republican — and they split along party lines, with the majority agreeing that the floating barrier violates the federal statute.

That three-judge panel’s decision is no longer in effect because the full Fifth Circuit agreed to rehear the case in a process known as “en banc” — a process that, among other things, allows the full court’s right-wing majority to reconsider decisions that were randomly assigned to panels with a Democratic majority.

In any event, the panel divided on whether the particular stretch of river that contains the floating barrier qualifies as a “navigable” waterway under the relevant federal law.

Judge Dana Douglas, the Biden appointee who authored the panel’s majority opinion, pointed to the fact that federal law defines what constitutes a “navigable” waterway quite expansively. Among other things, the relevant federal regulation provides that “a determination of navigability, once made, applies laterally over the entire surface of the waterbody, and is not extinguished by later actions or events which impede or destroy navigable capacity.”

Douglas also points to several official federal documents which concluded that the relevant section of the Rio Grande is navigable, including a 2011 determination by the Army Corps that this river is navigable from “the Zapata-Webb county line upstream to the point of intersection of the Texas-New Mexico state line and Mexico,” and a 1984 determination by the US Coast Guard that the Rio Grande “was listed among the navigable waters of the United States pursuant to treaties with Mexico and for Coast Guard regulatory purposes.”

In dissent, Judge Don Willett, a Trump judge, essentially argues that these determinations by expert federal agencies were wrong and that they misread two longstanding treaties.

It’s doubtful that Willett, a lawyer with no training in engineering, hydrology, or maritime navigation, reached a more accurate conclusion than two federal agencies with considerable expertise in such matters. But Willett does make a plausible case that the relevant section of the river has not historically been used very much by commercial vessels. Among other things, he points to a 1975 Army Corps study which found that “there was ‘no [then-current] commercial activity occurring within’ that stretch of the river.”

So this does appear to be an edge case. It’s not surprising that migrants would prefer to cross the Rio Grande at a narrow point that does not lend itself to easy commercial navigation.

Nevertheless, given that federal regulations explicitly state that “a determination of navigability, once made, applies laterally over the entire surface of the waterbody,” Willett is on very shaky ground by trying to second-guess a series of official determinations that the Rio Grande is navigable — many of which predate the Abbott litigation by decades.
Gov. Abbott’s public rhetoric about these disputes has focused on his worst legal argument

On Wednesday, shortly after the Supreme Court ruled against him in the razor wire case, Abbott released an angry statement accusing the federal government of breaking “the compact between the United States and the States” by opposing Abbott’s preferred border policies. He also claimed that he has the authority to act against the federal government’s wishes because he “declared an invasion under Article I, § 10, Clause 3 to invoke Texas’s constitutional authority to defend and protect itself.”

This is, to put it mildly, a terrible legal argument.

The clause of the Constitution that Abbott references provides that “no State shall ... engage in War, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent Danger as will not admit of delay.” One thing that immediately stands out after reading this language is that it does not authorize any state to do anything. Rather, this clause is a prohibition on certain state actions; it forbids states from waging “War” except in limited circumstances.

It is very odd to read a provision of the Constitution that limits state power as giving a state the power to violate federal law.

Abbott’s argument that a rush of migrants trying to enter the United States constitutes an “invasion,” moreover, was rejected by no less of an authority than James Madison. In an 1800 document, Madison wrote that “invasion is an operation of war ... And as the removal of alien friends has appeared to be no incident to a general state of war, it cannot be incident to a partial state, or a particular modification of war.”

In other words, undocumented migrants from non-hostile nations are neither an “invasion” nor are they something a state can wage “War” against.

Federal courts, moreover, have previously agreed with Madison. As one federal appeals court concluded in a 1996 opinion, “[I]n order for a state to be afforded the protections of the Invasion Clause, it must be exposed to armed hostility from another political entity, such as another state or foreign country that is intending to overthrow the state’s government.” Immigration, even by people who do so illegally, does not constitute “armed hostility from another political entity.”

All of which is a long way of saying that, if the courts apply longstanding legal principles, Abbott should lose all three of these cases — and he should absolutely lose the two cases seeking to undermine Hines’s conclusion that states may only play an extremely limited role in setting immigration policy because of the danger that a state may harm the US’s relationship with a foreign power.

But Abbott is betting that the Supreme Court’s current majority won’t care what established law has to say about his border policy.

https://www.vox.com/scotus/2024/1/2...tQS3_MZ0hAaqOY-cl3SRFj5QvmPrWHs4_M_QLkEc

I'm disputing it, not because of my party, law and order, or any of that mumbo-jumbo. I'm disputing it because as usual you are 100% clueless.

SCOTUS did not say the wire "needs removed". They said no such thing or anything even hinting at that. Either you live in a world of make-believe or watch entirely too much State TV.


And again, nobody has ignored any rulings. Has anyone tried to remove wire? No, didn't think so. #fakenews

IN FACT, many members of Sleepy Joe's border patrol have clearly stated they will not remove any wire, already have ample access to patrol the river, stand with TMD, and commend their efforts and hard work in keeping this complete disaster under control.

If you believe in conspiracy theories, you can justify being stupid.

It's always a conspiracy theory until it comes true, remember COVID?

Not so long ago you were talking about how the border patrol was going as far as using heavy equipment to lift the wire. How they were cutting the wire and making the wire useless. Now you claim they like the wire and won't remove the wire. It seems as though you like to claim it goes both ways depending on the debate at the time. So are they doing everything in their power to circumvent the wire or do they promote the wire remaining?

Yes, we all remember Covid. Which is another reason to dismiss conspiracy theories.