Texas Legal professional Basic Ken Paxton on Friday rejected calls for by the Biden administration for entry to Shelby Park in Eagle Cross the place the Border Patrol had beforehand processed large numbers of unlawful aliens who crossed the Rio Grande from Mexico. Texas took management of the 47 acre city park on January 10 below the order of Gov. Greg Abbott (R) and has blocked the federal authorities from accessing the property ever since–even after a Supreme Court docket ruling that the federal authorities might reduce or take away razor wire and different boundaries erected by Texas to guard the state from mass unlawful immigration being enabled by the Biden administration.
The transfer by Texas to dam the federal authorities from Shelby Park drew added controversy when Democrat Rep. Henry Cuellar (TX) falsely accused Gov. Abbott of letting three illegal aliens drown within the Rio Grande by denying Border Patrol brokers entry to the park.
The Biden administration has up to now not tried to make use of power to entry the park. DHS despatched a letter on Tuesday citing the Supreme Court docket resolution to demand entry to the park. Texas rejected the DHS demand. (Excerpt, CNN timeline of events at Shelby Park):
The US Division of Homeland Safety despatched a letter to Texas’ legal professional common reiterating the federal authorities’s demand that state authorities absolutely reopen the Shelby Park space to Border Patrol brokers.
This time, the DHS common counsel cited the Supreme Court docket’s ruling permitting federal authorities to chop or take away razor wire and argued it had the authorized proper to entry disputed areas in Eagle Cross.
“Pursuant to federal regulation enabling the U.S. authorities to sentence property rights important to regulate and guard the borders of america, 8 U.S.C § 1103(b), the Division acquired everlasting actual property pursuits in and round Eagle Cross in 2008 to assist the development and upkeep of border boundaries in and across the Shelby Park space,” the DHS wrote to Paxton.
“For a lot of the property … the Division acquired price easy curiosity from the Metropolis of Eagle Cross by way of condemnation in addition to from non-public landowners.”
Paxton despatched a response letter to the overall counsel for the Division of Homeland Safety on Friday rejecting calls for for entry to Shelby Park and as a substitute made calls for of the federal authorities to show possession or present entry agreements to plats of land in or close to the park that the division claims to have. Paxton gave DHS a deadline of February 15.
Paxton posted about his letter on X Twitter:
In the present day, I denied the Biden Administration’s unfounded requests & issued counter-demands. By February 15, DHS should provide the official plat maps & deeds demonstrating the exact parcels to which they declare possession, a proof of how Texas is stopping entry to these particular parcels, documentation exhibiting that Eagle Cross or Texas ever granted permission for DHS to erect infrastructure that interferes with border safety, & proof of Congress empowering DHS to show a Texas park into an unofficial & unlawful port of entry. If the federal gov. goes to make such claims, it should present proof.
Presumably as a result of you haven’t any significant response to our letter, your newest letter abandons earlier factual assertions, asserts new ones, & provides even much less of a authorized foundation to your demand. As soon as once more, I respectfully recommend that any time you may spend suing Texas ought to be redirected towards implementing the immigration legal guidelines Congress already has on the books. As I stated earlier than, this workplace will proceed to defend Texas’s efforts to guard its southern border towards each effort by the Biden Administration to undermine the State’s constitutional proper of self-defense.
🚨 In the present day, I denied the Biden Administration’s unfounded requests & issued counter-demands. By February 15, DHS should provide the official plat maps & deeds demonstrating the exact parcels to which they declare possession, a proof of how Texas is stopping entry to these… https://t.co/cXwBfGtiG3
— Legal professional Basic Ken Paxton (@KenPaxtonTX) January 27, 2024
January 26, 2024
Jonathan E. Meyer
Basic Counsel
U.S. Division of Homeland Safety
2707 Martin Luther King Jr Ave SE
Washington, D.C. 20528-0525
Pricey Mr. Meyer:Pricey Mr. Meyer:
I’ve obtained your second demand letter dated January 23, 2024, during which DHS continues to complain about how TMD secured Shelby Park within the Metropolis of Eagle Cross, Texas. In a earlier response, I defined that your unique letter “misstates each the information and the regulation in demanding that Texas give up to President Biden’s open-border insurance policies.” Presumably as a result of you haven’t any significant response to our letter, your newest letter abandons earlier factual assertions, asserts new ones, and provides even much less of a authorized foundation to your demand. As soon as once more, I respectfully recommend that any time you may spend suing Texas ought to be redirected towards implementing the immigration legal guidelines Congress already has on the books.Once more, let’s begin with the information. As I’ve already defined, U.S. Border Patrol withdrew from Shelby Park final 12 months and intentionally decreased its capability to reply to medical emergencies within the neighborhood. The tragic incident on January 12, 2024 that you just as soon as tried to pin on Texas had already occurred properly earlier than your company’s officers arrived on the Shelby Park gate—conspicuously missing any gear to carry out an emergency rescue. And the supposed “Memorandum of Settlement” between U.S. Customs and Border Safety and the Metropolis of Eagle Cross from 2015 (2015 MOA) was by no means accredited by Texas as required below the State’s structure. Your newest letter disputes none of this. As a substitute, you now declare Texas has one way or the other restricted entry to land owned by the federal authorities. But your first demand letter acknowledged that Shelby Park “is municipal land owned by the Metropolis of Eagle Cross,” not america. Which is it?
If this newfound allegation of federal “property rights” had been true, Texas would after all take away any obstructions to federal land pursuant to a lawful courtroom order. This State will proceed to respect one other sovereign’s property rights, despite the fact that the federal authorities refuses to take action. See, e.g., Texas v. DHS, 2023 WL 7135677, at *3 (W.D. Tex. Oct. 30, 2023) (Moses, C.J.) (discovering federal brokers repeatedly trespassed to state chattels, and even “broken extra property a mere day after” the State sought a brief restraining order); Texas v. DHS, 88 F.4th 1127, 1136 (fifth Cir. 2023)(observing that federal brokers “have repeatedly ‘harm[d], destroy[ed], and exercis[ed]
dominion over state property’”), vacated, 2024 WL 222180 (U.S. Jan. 22, 2024) (mem.).After conducting a diligent search within the arbitrarily quick interval you allotted for this rebuttal, it seems there are severe causes to query each of your new claims of federal property rights. First, you say america acquired fee-simple title to sure parcels within the Shelby Park space. However your personal map exhibits that many of the tracts you reference fall exterior the perimeter space secured by Texas at Shelby Park. With respect to parcels recognized in your maps which might be truly within the neighborhood of the park, publicly out there information recommend america doesn’t even purport to personal what your newest letter claims. For instance, the home-cooked map hooked up to your
letter insinuates that america has title to each parcel on the west aspect of Ryan Avenue bordering Shelby Park. Primarily based on our essentially cursory overview, present information from Maverick County don’t assist that declare. By February 15, 2024, Texas hereby calls for that your company provide the next paperwork and data to this workplace:official plat maps and deeds demonstrating the exact parcels that you just imagine america owns; and your clarification of how precisely Texas officers are stopping entry to these parcels by federal brokers.
Second, you say america acquired a perpetual easement from the Metropolis of Eagle Cross in 2018. What I stated final week in regards to the 2015 MOA, I’ll say once more about your newest declare: “Texas by no means accredited that transaction as required by Article IV, § 10 of the Texas Structure. Your federal company can’t have one thing that was not the Metropolis’s to offer.” You’re invited to learn that doc at https://tlc.texas.gov/docs/legref/TxConst.pdf. However even when the 2015 MOA had been one way or the other legitimate, you aren’t searching for “entry per” its phrases. The “nonexclusive” easement from 2018 is hooked up to your comfort. Its specific “goal” was to permit “upkeep . . . of a street” alongside the river, together with “the fitting to trim . . . timber” or different obstacles throughout the roadway. Elsewhere, the 2018 easement prohibits america from making any everlasting enhancements “aside from a Roadway” with out written Metropolis approval. In case your federal company needs to assist municipal officers with tree-trimming and road-maintenance chores, I believe they’d recognize the assistance. The 2018 easement, nonetheless, nowhere contemplates permitting the federal authorities to deploy infrastructure that President Biden will use to wave hundreds of unlawful aliens right into a park that may “proceed to [be] use[d] and luxuriate in[ed]” for “recreation occasions.” By February 15, 2024, Texas hereby calls for that your company provide the next paperwork and data to this workplace:
any written approval from the Metropolis of Eagle Cross or the State of Texas consenting to permit your federal brokers to erect the open-border infrastructure hinted at in your letter; and your clarification of the place the Congress has empowered your federal company to pursue this scheme, however statutory provisions on the contrary.
With out clarifying each the metes and bounds of the federal authorities’s alleged “property rights,” and the way its lawful entry to such property has been in any approach impeded, the State can’t meaningfully assess your demand. However to the extent your company calls for entry with the intention to as soon as once more remodel Shelby Park into “an unofficial and illegal port of entry,” Texas v. DHS, 2023 WL 8285223, at *14 (W.D. Tex. Nov. 29, 2023) (Moses, C.J.), your request is hereby denied.
To be clear, your newest letter factors to no regulation supporting the company’s proper to do this. In an unexplained reference to “Border Patrol’s accountability and statutory authorities,” you parrot statutory language in regards to the want “to patrol the border.” However you (unsurprisingly) omit the statutory language that your company continues publicly to ignore: Border Patrol is tasked with “patrolling the border to stop the unlawful entry of aliens.” 8 U.S.C. § 1357(a)(3) (emphasis added). As a substitute, you fixate on a latest order from the Supreme Court docket of america. As you already know, that unsigned order provided no rationale for vacating a Fifth Circuit injunction. It might be that the
Supreme Court docket was misled by allegations levelled by your federal company, and which you repeated in your January 14th letter to our workplace. In any occasion, the Court docket’s order definitely stated nothing about entry to Shelby Park, which even the federal authorities’s attorneys acknowledged is “not offered” in that ongoing litigation. See Second Supplemental Memorandum at 5, DHS v. Texas, No. 23A607 (Jan. 15, 2024).As I stated earlier than, this workplace will proceed to defend Texas’s efforts to guard its southern border towards each effort by the Biden Administration to undermine the State’s constitutional proper of self-defense. You need to advise your purchasers to hitch us in these efforts by doing their job and following the regulation.
Sincerely,
Ken Paxton
Legal professional Basic of Texas
cc: The Honorable Greg Abbott, Governor of Texas
Main Basic Thomas M. Suelzer, Adjutant Basic, Texas Navy Division
The Honorable Merrick B. Garland, U.S. Legal professional Basic
Paxton appeared on the Fox Information Channel Thursday evening to debate the disaster on the border:
