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Quick update on Texas Republican Governor Greg Abbott and the 1,000-foot-long centipedes of orange killer buoys he illegally stuck in the middle of the Rio Grande near Eagle Pass, Texas, to kill migrants. Just kidding! He only means them to deter the so-called “invasion” of immigrants Texas Republicans are always having such a shitfit about. Yep.
Federal Judge David A. Ezra, a Reagan appointee, just kicked the fucking shit out of Abbott. And this is just a preliminary injunction, so there’s more fun yet to come!
The barriers were stuck out in the middle of the waterway, which is under federal jurisdiction. Ezra has ordered them moved to the bank on the Texas side for now, explaining that because this is just a preliminary injunction, this is a preliminary solution. He explains that Abbott can do this really fast, as he demonstrated recently when the barriers started floating over to the Mexican side and they had to go fetch them.
The Department of Justice sued in July, saying Abbott actually didn’t have the authority to, without permission, summarily hurl gigantic barriers into the middle of the navigable river, replete with steel mesh “anti-dive” nets and gigantic obstructive anchors. Two dead bodies already showed up near the buoys in August. Meanwhile, this summer a Texas EMT’s report found that the state was literally ordering troopers to push small children back into the river, and that a pregnant woman miscarried when caught in barbed wire along the shoreline.
Oh yes, we mustn’t forget Abbott’s human-slicing barbed wire.
It’s always an urgent situation when you’re dealing with Republicans’ bloodlusting cruelty, but even so, this was urgent.
Ezra’s preliminary injunction is a delight to read, because as we mentioned, he just kicks the shit out of Abbott from start to finish:
Governor Abbott announced that he was not “asking for permission” for Operation Lone Star, the anti-immigration program under which Texas constructed the floating barrier. Unfortunately for Texas, permission is exactly what federal law requires before installing obstructions in the nation’s navigable waters.
“Unfortunately for Texas.” Pretty much every page is “unfortunately for Texas.” He dismantles every inch of Texas’s arguments, that the buoys do not count as “structures” under the rules governing barriers; about the navigability of the Rio Grande; and regarding the safety of the barriers for people traveling the river, whether up and down it or across it.
Toward the end, Ezra hose-pisses all over Abbott’s adorable theory that Texas is under an “invasion,” and therefore should be able to unilaterally declare war (as a state) on immigrants, especially in cases where the American president is a Democrat who is gay for open borders.
Under this logic, once Texas decides, in its sole discretion, that it has been invaded, it is subject to no oversight of its “chosen means of waging war.” Such a claim is breathtaking.
When he says “breathtaking,” we are taking that as judge talk for “Suck 100 percent of my balls.”
Ezra finds that the DOJ is likely to succeed in its case against Texas, and that “Texas’s conduct irreparably harms the public safety, navigation, and the operations of federal agency officials in and around the Rio Grande.” So Abbott has to move the barriers by September 15, which is next Friday. And Texas has to pay for it.
Abbott is of course huffing and puffing and making little man threats:
“Our battle to defend Texas’ sovereign authority to protect lives from the chaos caused by President Biden’s open border policies has only begun,” the statement said. “Texas is prepared to take this fight all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.”
Unfortunately for Abbott, Slate’s Mark Joseph Stern explained a couple months back that SCOTUS conservatives John Roberts and Brett Kavanaugh really don’t have strong records of supporting red states unilaterally declaring war or anointing themselves the supreme arbiter of border policy.
So in legal terms, Greg Abbott can go eat a fuck at his earliest convenience.
Move the buoys first, though, champ.
[preliminary injunction / Washington Post]
Evan Hurst on Twitter right here.
@evanjosephhurst on Threads!
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