Tuesday, July 25, 2023

[U] Tangent -- GOP Gov. Abbott, In Texas... Will LOSE -- And Lose, Immediately: He Violates Federal Law, In Stringing Razor Wire Across A Federal Waterway.


At least, he cannot, not without official federal permission. And the actual floating razor wire barrier clearly violates our international treaties -- on treatment of asylum seekers.

That asylum seekers are being lacerated by this inhumane garbage political stunt (Herr Guv. Abbott) is beyond dispute.

That he didn't ask for approval: likewise beyond dispute -- as it would never have been given.

And now, here is the complaint (brought in the name of the United States) in federal court, in West Texas, in full -- and a bit:
. . .The Floating Barrier consists of a string of buoys [wrapped in razor wire] each of which is between 4 and 6 feet in diameter. According to a June 8, 2023, press statement by Governor Abbott, this string of buoys may stretch for at least 1,000 feet.

Defendants do not have authorization from the Corps pursuant to 33 U.S.C. § 403 or 33 C.F.R. § 322.3 for the Floating Barrier or for any associated infrastructure. . . . Defendants did not seek authorization from the Corps prior to installing the Floating Barrier. . . . Governor Abbott stated publicly on June 8, 2023, that Texas may seek to build similar floating barriers within the Rio Grande along the United States-Mexico border in Texas in addition to the one then contemplated, and now constructed, in the vicinity of Eagle Pass, Texas.

Because Texas installed the Floating Barrier without seeking the Corps’ authorization, the Corps and other relevant federal agencies were deprived of the opportunity to evaluate risks the barrier poses to public safety and the environment, mitigate those risks as necessary through the permitting process, and otherwise evaluate whether the project is in the public interest.

Governor Abbott has stated publicly that the Floating Barrier is part of a broader effort called “Operation Lone Star”. . . . According to Governor Abbott, Operation Lone Star also includes the placement of concertina wire near the U.S.-Mexico border. . . . With respect to the placement of concertina wire, Governor Abbott has stated: “We aren’t asking for permission. . . .


This man is an uttery deplorable, cruel and embittered... loser. His MAGA agenda has utterly failed to win broader national support (his mentor, Tangerine, is well on his way to a federal prison), so -- as all despots eventually do -- he's turned to human rights abuses, to foment anger and whip up fund-raising support -- in his tiny, but apparently loyal to brown-shirts base.

What an a$$.

Soon the people of Texas will have to pay for the injuries to asylum seekers, as well as pay the fees of the attorneys bringing suit against Abbott. Of course, he and AG Paxson only ever waste the taxpayers' money on this garbage -- not any of their own.

Damnation.

UPDATED -- for a letter Abbott sent to Mr. Biden last night, making written admissions against interest: In a grandstanding piece of lying partisan political chicanery, Greg Abbott made lots of admissions to President Biden, overnight. Admissions against interest. Here's a bit of the worst of them:

. . .Two years before Texas deployed the [razor wire] barriers, and a year before it deployed concertina wire, a United Nations agency declared that the border between the United States and Mexico [Condor notes: that is a lie -- those were NOT Rio Grande crossings -- most were closer to California or New Mexico, overland] is the deadliest land crossing in the world, with 728 migrant deaths recorded in 2021. . . .

Before Texas took the action about which you now complain, hundreds of migrants drowned in the Rio Grande River trying to cross the border illegally. [Confidential note to Abbott, from Condor: if they are asylum seekers, they possess a treaty GUARANTEED right -- that their crossing is LAWFUL wherever it occurs, under long settled US law (on waterways, or overland) -- so his razor wire is lacerating people, solely for exercising a right guaranteed by international law.]

Before Texas took the action about which you now complain, 53 migrants who illegally crossed [see above prior note to Abbot, again] the border died in the back of an 18-wheel tractor trailer near San Antonio.

Before Texas took the action about which you now complain, thousands of Americans lost their lives to the fentanyl that pours across our border daily [Confidential to Abbott: you cannot establish that the majority or even a portion, of the fentanyl in the US is arriving from Mexico -- let alone that it is coming via the Rio Grande. What an ass-hatted... lie.]
. . . .


So -- Abbott preposterously says his razor wire "cares about life"?! Saves. . . lives?!

Who is. . . this idiot?! [And we should note that all the assertions about law, in Abbott's earlier 2022 letters, that appear at the end of the current one. . . have been ruled to be errant. That is, courts have uniformly rejected Abbott's claims about immigration law -- even in the Supreme Court. So. . . yes, he's a grandstanding idiot -- maiming, and killing people with a clearly treaty-guaranteed right to cross, by waterway.]

नमस्ते

1 comment:

condor said...

And. . . my hero, USDC Judge Jon Tigar in Oakland just this afternoon ruled that the treaties I mention in the main post, and various federal statutes. . . mean what they say:

...Tigar wrote that "noncitizens who enter between ports of entry, using a manner of entry that Congress expressly intended should not affect access to asylum...."

He has stayed his own ruling for two weeks, to allow Mr. Biden to appeal, but the point is that if one is seeking asylum, it DOES NOT MATTER where one crosses -- the putative asylee HAS A RIGHT TO ARRIVE, and seek asylum.

Period.

Out.