An ex-DHS official said taking on the GOP-led state would light yet another fire when the administration wants to appear tougher on border security.

The Biden administration has not sued. It did win a Supreme Court ruling that it could take down the razor wire that Texas has deployed in Shelby Park and elsewhere, which the administration said has led to drowning deaths among migrants. It has now cut razor wire in some sections of the border, but not in Shelby Park, which it can’t access.

Three Biden administration officials said the Supreme Court’s recent razor wire ruling was a win in federal government’s fight with Texas over Shelby Park, but they concede it does not explicitly give control of the area back to Border Patrol.

…

The three Biden administration officials told NBC News they do not want a confrontation between Border Patrol and Texas National Guard, but they still consider legal action a tool they might deploy. Shortly after Texas started blocking the Border Patrol from accessing Shelby Park, a mother and two children drowned while crossing the Rio Grande. The officials say they might have been saved if Border Patrol had been able to operate its equipment to surveil the river and respond to migrants in distress.

For now, however, optics mean the administration is holding fire, said a former Department of Homeland Security official. The official said that between the fight to pass a border bill, defend Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas in an impeachment fight, and other lawsuits challenging Texas, taking on the Republican-led state would ignite another fire at a time when the administration wants to appear tougher on border security.

Archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20240207121746/https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/immigration/biden-administration-lawsuit-texas-abbott-border-patrol-rcna137565

  • jmp242@sopuli.xyz
    5·
    11 months ago

    I fully expect that the rest of the US, assuming they still acted in concert, could occupy Texas indefinitely, but it would be like Iraq and would be a huge cost in all sorts of ways. They bigger thing is I kind of doubt the rest of the red states would want to support that effort, and many of the blue states frankly would be happy to see Texas go and stop screwing up so much stuff while costing federal dollars.

    • gAlienLifeform@lemmy.worldOP
      2·
      11 months ago

      I fully expect that the rest of the US, assuming they still acted in concert, could occupy Texas indefinitely, but it would be like Iraq and would be a huge cost in all sorts of ways.

      Exactly

      many of the blue states frankly would be happy to see Texas go and stop screwing up so much stuff while costing federal dollars.

      Perhaps, but they’d be really short sighted then, because Texas would just become the Afghanistan to our Pakistan, e.g. where terrorist assholes flee to after launching attacks in Pakistan

      If we really get to this point, it’s going to be bad choices and worse choices and just a lot of needless suffering and death