The U.S. Justice Department announced it is suing Texas and Gov. Greg Abbott after the state declined to remove the floating barrier deployed on the Rio Grande near Eagle Pass.
The lawsuit was filed in an Austin federal court and alleges the barrier was installed without authorization from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and states that “Because Texas installed the Floating Barrier without seeking the Corps’ authorization, the Corps and other relevant federal agencies were deprived of the opportunity to evaluate risks the barrier poses to public safety and the environment, mitigate those risks as necessary through the permitting process, and otherwise evaluate whether the project is in the public interest.”
Additionally, the lawsuit alleges that the barrier obstructs navigation on the river and demands it be removed.
Last week, the Justice Department sent a letter threatening legal action against the state if it did not comply and remove the barrier by 1 p.m. on Monday. Abbott responded with a letter to President Joe Biden on Monday morning committing to keep the barrier in place.
Abbott defended his decision to do so as the “commander-in-chief of our State’s militia” and blamed the Biden administration’s immigration policy for the conditions at the border.
“It has been under your watch that migrants have suffered an unprecedented crisis of inhumanity,” Abbott said in the letter. “If you truly care about human life, you must begin enforcing federal immigration laws.”
After the lawsuit was filed, Abbott took to Twitter saying, “Texas will see the Biden Administration in court to aggressively defend our sovereign authority to secure the border. Biden’s open border policies created this humanitarian disaster. Texas will continue to exercise our constitutional right to respond.”
Texas’ U.S. Rep. Chip Roy, R-Austin, tweeted: “Pound sand,” to express his displeasure with the Justice Department’s lawsuit.
The controversial barrier, accompanied by rows of razor wire, was deployed by the state earlier this month as part of Operation Lone Star, an aggressive state border security initiative launched in March 2021. Under the operation, Abbott has sent hundreds of Texas Department of Public Safety troopers and the Texas National Guard to the border and has paid to bus thousands of migrants from Texas to Democrat-run cities around the U.S.
The Justice Department lawsuit was preceded by a diplomatic complaint about the barrier from the Mexican government and a lawsuit filed by an Eagle Pass kayaking business.