A federal appeals court temporarily paused a ruling Monday that allowed Border Patrol to remove the barbed wire Texas authorities installed on the border.

U.S. District Court Judge Alina Moses, a George W. Bush appointee, declined Wednesday to issue an injunction blocking the federal government from removing the wire, despite criticizing the Biden administration’s handling of the border. After Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s swift appeal, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals issued an administrative stay temporarily pausing the ruling on Monday.

Texas sued the Biden administration for its practice of cutting the border wire in late October.

“I am pleased the court recognized the extent of the federal government’s blatant and disturbing efforts to subvert law and order at our State’s border with Mexico,” Paxton said in a statement. “This is an important step supporting Texas’s right to protect our citizens from Biden’s doctrine of open borders at any cost.”

Moses wrote in her Wednesday ruling that the evidence “amply demonstrates the utter failure of the [Biden administration] to deter, prevent, and halt unlawful entry into the United States.”

“The law may be on the side of the Defendants and compel a resolution in their favor today, but it does not excuse their culpable and duplicitous conduct,” Moses wrote Wednesday.

“The Defendants cannot claim the statutory duties they are so obviously derelict in enforcing as excuses to puncture the Plaintiff’s attempts to shore up the Defendants’ failing system,” the judge wrote. “Nor may they seek judicial blessing of practices that both directly contravene those same statutory obligations and require the destruction of the Plaintiff’s property.”

Katelynn Richardson on December 5, 2023