Texas Lawyer Normal Ken Paxton on Friday rejected calls for by the Biden administration for entry to Shelby Park in Eagle Go the place the Border Patrol had beforehand processed huge numbers of unlawful aliens who crossed the Rio Grande from Mexico. Texas took management of the 47 acre metropolis park on January 10 underneath the order of Gov. Greg Abbott (R) and has blocked the federal authorities from accessing the property ever since–even after a Supreme Courtroom ruling that the federal authorities may lower 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 unlawful aliens drown within the Rio Grande by denying Border Patrol brokers entry to the park.
The Biden administration has thus far not tried to make use of power to entry the park. DHS despatched a letter on Tuesday citing the Supreme Courtroom choice to demand entry to the park. Texas rejected the DHS demand. (Excerpt, CNN timeline of occasions at Shelby Park):
The US Division of Homeland Safety despatched a letter to Texas’ lawyer basic reiterating the federal authorities’s demand that state authorities totally reopen the Shelby Park space to Border Patrol brokers.
This time, the DHS basic counsel cited the Supreme Courtroom’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 Go.
“Pursuant to federal legislation 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 Go 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 Go through condemnation in addition to from personal 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 an alternative 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:
Right this moment, 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, an evidence of how Texas is stopping entry to these particular parcels, documentation exhibiting that Eagle Go 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 needs to be redirected towards imposing 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 in opposition to each effort by the Biden Administration to undermine the State’s constitutional proper of self-defense.
🚨 Right this moment, 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, an evidence of how Texas is stopping entry to these… https://t.co/cXwBfGtiG3
— Lawyer Normal Ken Paxton (@KenPaxtonTX) January 27, 2024
Textual content of Paxton’s letter:
January 26, 2024
Jonathan E. Meyer
Normal Counsel
U.S. Division of Homeland Safety
2707 Martin Luther King Jr Ave SE
Washington, D.C. 20528-0525
Expensive Mr. Meyer:Expensive Mr. Meyer:
I’ve acquired your second demand letter dated January 23, 2024, through which DHS continues to complain about how TMD secured Shelby Park within the Metropolis of Eagle Go, Texas. In a earlier response, I defined that your unique letter “misstates each the details and the legislation 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 needs to be redirected towards imposing the immigration legal guidelines Congress already has on the books.Once more, let’s begin with the details. As I’ve already defined, U.S. Border Patrol withdrew from Shelby Park final 12 months and intentionally diminished its skill to answer 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 effectively 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 Go from 2015 (2015 MOA) was by no means authorized by Texas as required underneath the State’s structure. Your newest letter disputes none of this. As a substitute, you now declare Texas has someway 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 Go,” not america. Which is it?
If this newfound allegation of federal “property rights” had been true, Texas would in fact take away any obstructions to federal land pursuant to a lawful court docket 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 brief 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 individual map exhibits that many of the tracts you reference fall outdoors the perimeter space secured by Texas at Shelby Park. With respect to parcels recognized in your maps which are really within the neighborhood of the park, publicly accessible 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 Road bordering Shelby Park. Based mostly on our essentially cursory evaluate, 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 consider 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 Go 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 authorized that transaction as required by Article IV, § 10 of the Texas Structure. Your federal company can not have one thing that was not the Metropolis’s to present.” You’re invited to learn that doc at https://tlc.texas.gov/docs/legref/TxConst.pdf. However even when the 2015 MOA had been someway legitimate, you aren’t in search of “entry in step with” its phrases. The “nonexclusive” easement from 2018 is hooked up to your comfort. Its specific “function” was to permit “upkeep . . . of a highway” alongside the river, together with “the suitable to trim . . . timber” or different obstacles throughout the roadway. Elsewhere, the 2018 easement prohibits america from making any everlasting enhancements “apart 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 think they might respect the assistance. The 2018 easement, nonetheless, nowhere contemplates permitting the federal authorities to deploy infrastructure that President Biden will use to wave 1000’s 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 Go 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 manner impeded, the State can not meaningfully assess your demand. However to the extent your company calls for entry so as 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 legislation supporting the company’s proper to do this. In an unexplained reference to “Border Patrol’s duty 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 forestall the unlawful entry of aliens.” 8 U.S.C. § 1357(a)(3) (emphasis added). As a substitute, you fixate on a current order from the Supreme Courtroom of america. As you recognize, that unsigned order provided no rationale for vacating a Fifth Circuit injunction. It might be that the
Supreme Courtroom 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 Courtroom’s order actually stated nothing about entry to Shelby Park, which even the federal authorities’s legal professionals 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 in opposition to each effort by the Biden Administration to undermine the State’s constitutional proper of self-defense. It’s best to advise your shoppers to hitch us in these efforts by doing their job and following the legislation.
Sincerely,
Ken Paxton
Lawyer Normal of Texas
cc: The Honorable Greg Abbott, Governor of Texas
Main Normal Thomas M. Suelzer, Adjutant Normal, Texas Navy Division
The Honorable Merrick B. Garland, U.S. Lawyer Normal
Paxton appeared on the Fox Information Channel Thursday night time to debate the disaster on the border:
