House Republican bill would bar feds from cutting border razor wire

Republican Rep. Mike Collins unveiled legislation Thursday that would prohibit the Biden administration from snipping razor wire and tearing down other barriers that Texas has erected near the southern border.

The Restricting Administration Zealots from Obliging Raiders (RAZOR) Act bans “removing or otherwise altering any state-constructed barriers installed to mitigate illegal immigration.”

“President Biden is aiding and abetting illegal aliens who are swarming our border and raiding our country’s resources. Why else would he try to stop the state of Texas from turning them back to Mexico?” Collins (R-Ga.) said in a statement.

“With the Supreme Court siding with the America Last policies of the Biden administration, Congress must stand with Governor Greg Abbott as he fights for the sovereignty of his state and our nation.”

On Monday, the US Supreme Court vacated a lower court injunction barring the Biden administration from cutting concertina wire, also called barbed wire or razor wire, placed by Texas law enforcement officials while a lawsuit over the matter plays out.

Rep. Mike Collins had made a name for himself with his penchant for meme-posting on social media. CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images

Texas had sought to block the administration from removing the wire and had mounted a court challenge for months.

Biden officials argued in court that Border Patrol agents needed to be able to cut down the razor-sharp wire to deal with emergency medical situations.

After the decision, Abbott vowed to continue using the wire and indicated that the Lone Star State would not block the federal government from accessing sections of the US-Mexico border.

A mother from Honduras crawled through concertina wire with her three children after crossing the Rio Grande River from Mexico. James Keivom

“If the Supreme Court won’t allow states to defend their sovereignty and our nation, Congress has a moral imperative to act,” Collins added on X.

In a separate case, the Justice Department has sued Texas to remove a floating barrier in the Rio Grande. Last week, a federal appeals court vacated an earlier ruling, allowing the barrier to remain in place for now.

On Wednesday, Abbott declared that Texas has a right to self-defense that “supersedes any federal statutes to the contrary.”

Migrants who crossed the Rio Grande River from Mexico into the United States went through concertina wire. NYPJ

Other Republican officials, including Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, came to Abbott’s defense.

“It’s unfortunate that there is a governor in Texas, Governor Abbott, who has politicized this issue of what’s happening at the border,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told CNN Thursday.

“He’s actually putting Border Patrol agents in harm’s way by doing what he’s doing.”

Greg Abbott has vowed to fight back against the Biden administration on the border. Robert Miller

Abbott fired back during an interview with Fox News’ “America’s Newsroom,” calling that comment “very uninformed” while downplaying the Supreme Court order.

“They didn’t write any type of opinion. All they did was to vacate a 5th Circuit Court of Appeals order back to the 5th Circuit,” he told the network.

“There was no opinion about anything about razor wire,” added Abbott, who said he was confident that Texas could win on the merits.

Abbott has feuded with the Biden administration over the border constantly since the president took office in January 2021.

Under Operation Lone Star, the Texas administration claims to have shipped over 100,000 migrants to blue cities and conducted over 496,000 illegal immigrant apprehensions.

Meanwhile, the US is seeing record numbers of illegal crossings at the southern border.

During fiscal year 2023, a record-breaking 2,475,669 migrant encounters were recorded along the Mexico frontier, according to US Customs and Border Protection.

Preliminary data indicate over 300,000 migrant encounters were recorded in December.