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There is a happening currently happening along the Texas/Mexico border which seems to be escalating in an interesting way.
The state of Texas has been taking measures to secure their border with Mexico. These measures include installing concertina wire (colloquially known as "razor wire") along the border.
A supreme court ruling said that US Border Patrol (the feds) are allowed to go into Texas against Texas's wishes and cut this wire. As /u/slowboy points out below, it is a bit more nuanced than that. There was an injunction preventing CBP from going to cut the wires, and the Supreme Court overruled it. Interesting culture war fodder: Amy Coney Barrett sided with the majority on this.
Yesterday, Greg Abbot signaled that he did not have any intention of complying with this.
Today, President Biden said that Texas has until tomorrow (Friday) to let them in. (Sorry for the low quality link here. If somebody has a better one please share it).
This does seem to be escalating rapidly. I don't see where the offramps are other than Abbot backing down. If he doesn't, what does that mean? Texas National Guard vs the Federal Government sounds awfully close to...I hate saying this, but a civil war? That's not right though since I can't imagine them shooting at each other.
This is also confusing to me politically. The border situation is not a political win for Biden. Even among liberals the cracks are starting to show. Morning Joe (msnbc show) this morning was talking about how there is a border crisis and it's the republicans causing all this illegal immigration by not doing a "Comprehensive Immigration Policy". That's obviously absurd, but it does show that liberals are willing to agree that completely open borders are suboptimal.
Edit: Trump weighs in
This, to my stupid non-lawyer brain, seems way more like an "incitement to insurrection" than anything he said on January 6th. Interesting.
I know you described the situation correctly, but I want to emphasize this point because it was not obvious to me when I first heard about this story: Texas is not directly defying the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court did not order Texas to do anything. The Supreme Court refused to uphold an injunction against the Federal Government, i.e., they said that Texas can't order the Federal Government to stop cutting wires. It's a distinction without a difference, but a big difference.
Still, if you had presented me this story a month ago, I would have guessed Texas would have backed down already. So I'm moderately surprised this is being fought. I'm still pretty cynical about a lot of Republican politicians, but maybe there's something a little deeper going on here.
Texas is standing up because they kind of are actually defending themselves against an invasion right now. Several hospitals are basically only serving migrants and aren't being compensated. They are threatening to shut down and leave the state. Biden has no political leg to stand on, and only a thin legal leg that there are 4 strong votes on SCOTUS to kick out from under him, and 2 questionable votes.
Er, Biden has a very strong legal leg to stand on. It's not an invasion, it's illegal immigration. The current situation is different in scale to what has happened continuously for many decades but not conceptually. I understand the desire to rhetorically brand the situation an "invasion", but it's not actually what it is. October 7th is what an invasion looks like.
The federal government does in fact have the legal authority to administer immigration law. That the current one is doing so very badly does not change this.
The Arizona case that currently is the most relevant precedent was made on the thinnest of grounds and is ahistorical. And states, traditionally, had the power to reject foreigners, particularly the indigent. Precedents beggining in the 1960s are against this...but the Warren court is notoriously wrong about all things.
Also, the invasion/immigration thing is obviously a question of fact and law to be subject to intense argument and scrutiny if ever litigated. I don't think anyone in the federal government wants to be calling witnesses to the stand about how 5000 people a day crossing the border, more or less unvetted, through cartel territory, is actually technically immigration not an invasion. It looks like an invasion to a large % of the populace. It is an invasion in the practical sense that the people abetting it ( Biden) seek to use it to change the populace of the nation. Its a total landmine for that side. While the Abbot side is simple and good for him, at least until the point where he loses on a technicality (not guaranteed) and then calls Roberts a loser who sucks big donkey dick.
I guess my question here is, if congress passed a law saying that, "The United States shall have open borders. The free entry of persons into the United States shall be presumed to be lawful unless proven otherwise," would that law be unconstitutional under Article 4 section 4? It would be a bit strange for the federal government to not have that power at all, but that would mean that the free movement of large numbers of people across the border isn't inherently an invasion.
It probably would be fine, but under Article 1-10 that would not be enforceable against any state utilizing its police powers. The framework, I think, intentionally leaves this power to both sovereigns as the founders presumed each would be corrupt, corruptible, and/or incompetent at any time, and thus they would work to check each other, as appears to be happening with Texas' actions. I think there are indications in the drafting discussions, federalist papers, etc that this is a non-justiciable question.
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