US Asks Supreme Court for Permission to Remove Border Fencing

The Biden administration asked the US Supreme Court to step in and allow it to remove parts of a 29-mile fence along the southern border.

The Justice Department sought intervention on Tuesday after a divided US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit sided Dec. 19 with Texas in prohibiting the US Border Patrol from cutting down razor wire fencing along the Rio Grande, except in an emergency.

The fence is part of a broader enforcement strategy put in place by Gov. Greg Abbott (R) to curb migrants from illegally crossing into the US.

The Biden administration said the the limited emergency exception isn’t enough to prevent “serious risk to human life.”

The “court of appeals ignored that by the time a medical emergency (such as drowning) is in progress, it may be too late for Border Patrol to prevent death or serious injury,” the filing said.

Moreover, the Fifth Circuit ruling interferes with the federal government’s enforcement of immigration law, the administration said.

It “directly interferes with the government’s enforcement of federal law by reinforcing the literal barriers Texas has erected that bar access by Border Patrol agents to the border they are charged with patrolling,” the filing said.

The case is DHS v. Texas, U.S., No. 23A607.