Supreme Court Backs Biden for Now in Dispute With Texas Over Border Barrier

The Supreme Court sided with the Biden administration on Monday, allowing federal officials to cut or remove parts of a concertina-wire barrier along the Mexican border that Texas erected to keep migrants from crossing into the state.

The ruling, by a 5-to-4 vote, was a victory for the administration in the increasingly bitter dispute between the White House and Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas, an outspoken critic of President Biden’s border policy who has shipped busloads of migrants to northern cities.

Since 2021, Mr. Abbott, a third-term Republican, has mounted a multibillion-dollar campaign to impose stringent measures at the border to deter migrants. Those include erecting concertina wire along the banks of the Rio Grande, installing a barrier of buoys in the river and enacting a sweeping law that allows state and local law enforcement to arrest migrants crossing from Mexico.

In lifting an appeals court ruling that had generally prohibited the administration from removing the wire while the court considers the case, the justices gave no reasons, which is typical when they act on emergency applications. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justice Amy Coney Barrett joined the court’s three liberal members to form a majority.

A spokesman for Mr. Abbott, Andrew Mahaleris, defended Texas’ practices and vowed to keep pressing its case. “The absence of razor wire and other deterrence strategies encourages migrants to make unsafe and illegal crossings between ports of entry,” he said in a statement, adding, “This case is ongoing, and Governor Abbott will continue fighting to defend Texas’ property and its constitutional authority to secure the border.”

Lydia Guzmán, the national immigration chairwoman of the League of United Latin American Citizens, embraced the decision. “The Supreme Court ruling will help save lives at the U.S.-Mexico border if Governor Abbott obeys the decision,” she said in a statement. “Further, the action by the justices allows Congress to work bipartisanly to address the broken immigration system.”

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