WASHINGTON, Jan 13, 2024 (BSS/AFP) - The administration of Democratic US
President Joe Biden on Friday accused Republican Texas Governor Greg Abbott
of preventing the federal border patrol from carrying out its mission by
blocking its access to a key sector of the border with Mexico.

Abbott, a staunch supporter of former president Donald Trump who made the
fight against immigration one of the main themes of his electoral campaign,
has openly questioned the authority of the Biden administration, accusing it
of "deliberate inaction" in the face of a record influx of migrants at the
border in recent months.

In December, an appeals court prohibited the federal border police from
damaging the barbed wire installed by Texas near the border town of Eagle
Pass, on the Rio Grande, to carry out its missions unless otherwise justified
by a medical emergency.

The Department of Justice went to the Supreme Court in early January to have
the decision overturned, but this week the Texas National Guard began
installing new barbed wire along a stretch of the border, said the Biden
administration's legal advisor, Elizabeth Prelogar, in a new appeal to the
top court Friday.

These new obstacles "effectively prohibit Border Patrol agents from accessing
or getting near the border along this 2.5-mile stretch of the river," the
appeal said.

Denouncing an "escalation of the State's measures to block Border Patrol's
ability to patrol or even to surveil the border and be in a position to
respond to emergencies," the government representative reiterated her request
for a cancellation of the decision of the court of appeal.