Texas Legal professional Common Ken Paxton on Friday rejected calls for by the Biden administration for entry to Shelby Park in Eagle Move the place the Border Patrol had beforehand processed large numbers of unlawful aliens who crossed the Rio Grande from Mexico. Texas took management of the 47 acre city park on January 10 beneath the order of Gov. Greg Abbott (R) and has blocked the federal authorities from accessing the property ever since–even after a Supreme Courtroom ruling that the federal authorities might lower or take away razor wire and different boundaries erected by Texas to guard the state from mass unlawful immigration being enabled by the Biden administration.

The transfer by Texas to dam the federal authorities from Shelby Park drew added controversy when Democrat Rep. Henry Cuellar (TX) falsely accused Gov. Abbott of letting three illegal aliens drown within the Rio Grande by denying Border Patrol brokers entry to the park.

The Biden administration has thus far not tried to make use of drive to entry the park. DHS despatched a letter on Tuesday citing the Supreme Courtroom determination to demand entry to the park. Texas rejected the DHS demand. (Excerpt, CNN timeline of events at Shelby Park):

The US Division of Homeland Safety despatched a letter to Texas’ lawyer normal reiterating the federal authorities’s demand that state authorities totally reopen the Shelby Park space to Border Patrol brokers.

This time, the DHS normal counsel cited the Supreme Courtroom’s ruling permitting federal authorities to chop or take away razor wire and argued it had the authorized proper to entry disputed areas in Eagle Move.

“Pursuant to federal law enabling the U.S. government to condemn property rights essential to control and guard the borders of the United States, 8 U.S.C § 1103(b), the Department acquired permanent real estate interests in and around Eagle Pass in 2008 to support the construction and maintenance of border barriers in and around the Shelby Park area,” the DHS wrote to Paxton.

“For much of the property … the Department acquired fee simple interest from the City of Eagle Pass via condemnation as well as from private landowners.”

Paxton despatched a response letter to the overall counsel for the Division of Homeland Safety on Friday rejecting calls for for entry to Shelby Park and as a substitute made calls for of the federal authorities to show possession or present entry agreements to plats of land in or close to the park that the division claims to have. Paxton gave DHS a deadline of February 15.

Paxton posted about his letter on X Twitter:

Right this moment, I denied the Biden Administration’s unfounded requests & issued counter-demands. By February 15, DHS should provide the official plat maps & deeds demonstrating the exact parcels to which they declare possession, an evidence of how Texas is stopping entry to these particular parcels, documentation displaying that Eagle Move or Texas ever granted permission for DHS to erect infrastructure that interferes with border safety, & proof of Congress empowering DHS to show a Texas park into an unofficial & unlawful port of entry. If the federal gov. goes to make such claims, it should present proof.

Presumably as a result of you don’t have any significant response to our letter, your newest letter abandons earlier factual assertions, asserts new ones, & provides even much less of a authorized foundation to your demand. As soon as once more, I respectfully counsel that any time you may spend suing Texas needs to be redirected towards implementing the immigration legal guidelines Congress already has on the books. As I mentioned earlier than, this workplace will proceed to defend Texas’s efforts to guard its southern border in opposition to each effort by the Biden Administration to undermine the State’s constitutional proper of self-defense.

🚨 Right this moment, I denied the Biden Administration’s unfounded requests & issued counter-demands. By February 15, DHS should provide the official plat maps & deeds demonstrating the exact parcels to which they declare possession, an evidence of how Texas is stopping entry to these… https://t.co/cXwBfGtiG3

— Legal professional Common Ken Paxton (@KenPaxtonTX) January 27, 2024

Text of Paxton’s letter:

January 26, 2024
Jonathan E. Meyer
Common Counsel
U.S. Division of Homeland Safety
2707 Martin Luther King Jr Ave SE
Washington, D.C. 20528-0525
Pricey Mr. Meyer:

Pricey Mr. Meyer:
I’ve obtained your second demand letter dated January 23, 2024, by which DHS continues to complain about how TMD secured Shelby Park within the Metropolis of Eagle Move, Texas. In a earlier response, I defined that your unique letter “misstates both the facts and the law in demanding that Texas surrender to President Biden’s open-border policies.” Presumably as a result of you don’t have any significant response to our letter, your newest letter abandons earlier factual assertions, asserts new ones, and provides even much less of a authorized foundation to your demand. As soon as once more, I respectfully counsel that any time you may spend suing Texas needs to be redirected towards implementing the immigration legal guidelines Congress already has on the books.

Once more, let’s begin with the info. As I’ve already defined, U.S. Border Patrol withdrew from Shelby Park final yr and intentionally diminished its skill to reply to medical emergencies within the neighborhood. The tragic incident on January 12, 2024 that you simply as soon as tried to pin on Texas had already occurred nicely earlier than your company’s officers arrived on the Shelby Park gate—conspicuously missing any tools to carry out an emergency rescue. And the supposed “Memorandum of Agreement” between U.S. Customs and Border Safety and the Metropolis of Eagle Move from 2015 (2015 MOA) was by no means authorized by Texas as required beneath the State’s structure. Your newest letter disputes none of this. As a substitute, you now declare Texas has by some means restricted entry to land owned by the federal authorities. But your first demand letter acknowledged that Shelby Park “is municipal land owned by the City of Eagle Pass,” not america. Which is it?

If this newfound allegation of federal “property rights” had been true, Texas would after all take away any obstructions to federal land pursuant to a lawful court docket order. This State will proceed to respect one other sovereign’s property rights, although the federal authorities refuses to take action. See, e.g., Texas v. DHS, 2023 WL 7135677, at *3 (W.D. Tex. Oct. 30, 2023) (Moses, C.J.) (discovering federal brokers repeatedly trespassed to state chattels, and even “damaged more property a mere day after” the State sought a short lived restraining order); Texas v. DHS, 88 F.4th 1127, 1136 (fifth Cir. 2023)(observing that federal brokers “have repeatedly ‘damage[d], destroy[ed], and exercis[ed]
dominion over state property’”), vacated, 2024 WL 222180 (U.S. Jan. 22, 2024) (mem.).

After conducting a diligent search within the arbitrarily quick interval you allotted for this rebuttal, it seems there are critical causes to query each of your new claims of federal property rights. First, you say america acquired fee-simple title to sure parcels within the Shelby Park space. However your personal map reveals that a lot of the tracts you reference fall exterior the perimeter space secured by Texas at Shelby Park. With respect to parcels recognized in your maps which can be really within the neighborhood of the park, publicly accessible information counsel america doesn’t even purport to personal what your newest letter claims. For instance, the home-cooked map connected to your
letter insinuates that america has title to each parcel on the west facet of Ryan Avenue bordering Shelby Park. Primarily based on our essentially cursory evaluation, present information from Maverick County don’t help that declare. By February 15, 2024, Texas hereby calls for that your company provide the next paperwork and data to this workplace:

official plat maps and deeds demonstrating the exact parcels that you simply consider america owns; and your rationalization of how precisely Texas officers are stopping entry to these parcels by federal brokers.

Second, you say america acquired a perpetual easement from the Metropolis of Eagle Move in 2018. What I mentioned final week concerning the 2015 MOA, I’ll say once more about your newest declare: “Texas never approved that transaction as required by Article IV, § 10 of the Texas Constitution. Your federal agency cannot have something that was not the City’s to give.” You’re invited to learn that doc at https://tlc.texas.gov/docs/legref/TxConst.pdf. However even when the 2015 MOA had been by some means legitimate, you aren’t looking for “access consistent with” its phrases. The “nonexclusive” easement from 2018 is connected to your comfort. Its specific “purpose” was to permit “maintenance . . . of a road” alongside the river, together with “the right to trim . . . trees” or different obstacles throughout the roadway. Elsewhere, the 2018 easement prohibits america from making any everlasting enhancements “other than a Roadway” with out written Metropolis approval. In case your federal company needs to assist municipal officers with tree-trimming and road-maintenance chores, I think they’d recognize the assistance. The 2018 easement, nonetheless, nowhere contemplates permitting the federal authorities to deploy infrastructure that President Biden will use to wave hundreds of unlawful aliens right into a park that can “continue to [be] use[d] and enjoy[ed]” for “recreation events.” By February 15, 2024, Texas hereby calls for that your company provide the next paperwork and data to this workplace:

any written approval from the Metropolis of Eagle Move or the State of Texas consenting to permit your federal brokers to erect the open-border infrastructure hinted at in your letter; and your rationalization of the place the Congress has empowered your federal company to pursue this scheme, however statutory provisions on the contrary.

With out clarifying each the metes and bounds of the federal authorities’s alleged “property rights,” and the way its lawful entry to such property has been in any manner impeded, the State can not meaningfully assess your demand. However to the extent your company calls for entry with a purpose to as soon as once more remodel Shelby Park into “an unofficial and unlawful port of entry,” Texas v. DHS, 2023 WL 8285223, at *14 (W.D. Tex. Nov. 29, 2023) (Moses, C.J.), your request is hereby denied.

To be clear, your newest letter factors to no regulation supporting the company’s proper to do this. In an unexplained reference to “Border Patrol’s responsibility and statutory authorities,” you parrot statutory language concerning the want “to patrol the border.” However you (unsurprisingly) omit the statutory language that your company continues publicly to ignore: Border Patrol is tasked with “patrolling the border to prevent the illegal entry of aliens.” 8 U.S.C. § 1357(a)(3) (emphasis added). As a substitute, you fixate on a current order from the Supreme Courtroom of america. As you realize, that unsigned order equipped no rationale for vacating a Fifth Circuit injunction. It could be that the
Supreme Courtroom was misled by allegations levelled by your federal company, and which you repeated in your January 14th letter to our workplace. In any occasion, the Courtroom’s order actually mentioned nothing about entry to Shelby Park, which even the federal authorities’s legal professionals acknowledged is “not presented” in that ongoing litigation. See Second Supplemental Memorandum at 5, DHS v. Texas, No. 23A607 (Jan. 15, 2024).

As I mentioned earlier than, this workplace will proceed to defend Texas’s efforts to guard its southern border in opposition to each effort by the Biden Administration to undermine the State’s constitutional proper of self-defense. It’s best to advise your shoppers to affix us in these efforts by doing their job and following the regulation.

Sincerely,

Ken Paxton
Legal professional Common of Texas
cc: The Honorable Greg Abbott, Governor of Texas
Main Common Thomas M. Suelzer, Adjutant Common, Texas Army Division
The Honorable Merrick B. Garland, U.S. Legal professional Common