AUSTIN, Texas - A federal lawsuit that two Republican-run states had unsuccessfully filed against the Biden administration to restart border wall construction has been revived by an appeals court and made a top order of business.
The New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on June 16 that a lawsuit Missouri and Texas brought in 2021 had standing to proceed after it was originally denied by a lower court.
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"Texas alleges (and [the Department of Homeland Security] has in the past affirmed) border barriers (i) reduce illegal entries in areas where constructed, and (ii) increase the rate at which illegal aliens are detected and apprehended," U.S. Circuit Judge Edith Jones wrote in the panel's decision.
The Texas General Land Office, led by then-Commissioner George P. Bush, sued the federal government in July 2021 for halting all wall construction in a portion of the state's border with Mexico where the office had leased a 3,000-acre portion of land to Starr County. Bush argued that the property had been turned into a "superhighway" as a result of the wall not going up.
The two states followed in October 2021 and sued on the basis that the Biden administration's canceling $2.75 billion in congressionally appropriated funding in fiscal 2020 and 2021 for border wall had cost them in healthcare, education, and driver's licenses for illegal immigrants who were released into the United States after crossing the border illegally.
Those immigrants, the states argued, would not have been able to cross the border if the wall projects had been able to continue.
U.S. District Judge Micaela Alvarez, an appointee of President George. W. Bush, dismissed the states case but allowed the General Land Office's case to proceed because, she said, it showed how the state land had been harmed.
The panel of circuit court judges heard the case last December. Led by Jones, the panel decided last week that Texas and Missouri had standing to proceed because the states had different costs incurred from the wall not being built, namely several billion dollars spent by Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) responding to the border crisis, which has resulted in more than 5 million illegal crossing apprehensions since President Joe Biden took office.
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"These benefits [of having a wall would] reduce some number of illegal immigrants entering Texas, even if they do not fully stem the tide, and thereby reduce Texas's costs relative to a non-border wall policy," Jones wrote.
Jones has instructed Alvarez to rule on the states' preliminary injunction request expeditiously.
Tags: News, Border Security, Texas, Federal Courts, Biden Administration
Original Author: Anna Giaritelli
Original Location: Appeals court revives lawsuit against Biden for ending border wall construction