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Surprised no one’s posted this yet: https://apnews.com/article/texas-border-water-barriers-doj-immigration-83bcb38e7f5ab613117634d0c439d6b6?taid=64bee0cde6315400010b8821&utm_campaign=TrueAnthem&utm_medium=AP&utm_source=Twitter
The justice department has filed a lawsuit against Texas for installing a system of buoy barriers in the rio grande after Mexico demanded the federal government make Texas remove them, and Greg Abbott published a response to the justice department’s demand telling them to pound sand. This comes on the heels of a news cycle about Texas border security repelling migrants into the Rio grande and using razor wire, which in turn seems to have happened once the mass bussing of migrants to places outside of Texas became old news.
Politically, Abbott is strongly incentivized to refuse to comply, even if it’s illegal, and it’s worth noting that he’s literally a constitutional lawyer and knows that he’s not going to win the lawsuit. So the most likely outcome is this getting dragged out in courts until federal agents remove the barriers themselves.
The other major culture war angle here is that the state’s defense is a previous declaration of invasion giving them the right to secure their own border, even in contravention of federal policy. This argument does not seem likely to hold up in court; it’s based on far-right legal theorizing that gained traction for political reasons. As Abbott is a thoroughly establishment creature it’s an interesting development in itself and likely portends that the Texas center-right(which, despite what the media will tell you, is solidly in control of the Texas state government) will choose to build a coalition with the far right rather than the moderate left in the future, and it probably has broader implications/lessons for far-right movements in wealthy first world countries seeking political influence.
calling out @huadpe for posting in every single subthread about something irrelevant about international treaties and shitting up this discussion. I found the lawsuit and it doesn't mention treaties at all, so you can shill this theory all you want but the courts won't touch it with a 10 foot pole unless the AG drops the case and comes back with a whole new one. https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.txwd.1172749163/gov.uscourts.txwd.1172749163.1.0.pdf
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It doesn't seem like it will get mod action, so I don't see the point in reporting it. But repeating the same thing in every subthread makes it impossible to respond to directly given the threaded model, so I resorted to a higher level post. What is the reasonable thing to do here?
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