Greg Abbott to Expand Barriers at Border

Texas Governor Greg Abbott has said on Tuesday barriers along the U.S.-Mexico border will expand.

Tension between federal and state units in Texas remains after President Joe Biden's administration secured a significant win over Abbott in late January after the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 to allow the temporary removal of razor wire along the southern border while litigation over the issue proceeds. The Court's decision has sparked anger among Republicans who support the measures taken by Abbott and his administration to fight illegal immigration in the state. Tensions over the measures escalated as the federal government raised environmental and humanitarian concerns about the deterrent.

The Texas governor, an outspoken critic of Biden over immigration issues, has vowed that the fight "is not over" and has also issued a statement declaring Texas' "right to self-defense."

On Tuesday, in a post on X, formerly Twitter, Abbott claimed that Texas' "resistance" will lead others to not "mess with Texas," adding that the state will continue to bring in more barriers along the border.

"Migrant crossings fall sharply along Texas border, shifting to Arizona and California. Our stiff resistance is educating cartels not to mess with Texas. Texas will continue erecting more barriers & target more arrests to better secure the border," Abbott wrote on X.

Newsweek has reached out to Abbott's office and the White House via email for comment.

Abbott has previously said more razor wire will be installed along the state's border. On Sunday, Abbott shared on X, "More National Guard & razor wire barriers are coming to the Texas border. We' re-doubling our efforts to expand the areas where we are denying illegal entry into Texas. Illegal immigration is now going down in Texas while increasing in [California] & [Arizona]."

Texas has continued to use razor wire as a barrier between the Rio Grande River and Shelby Park, a 47-acre area in Eagle Pass, which has become one of the busiest locations for people attempting to cross into the U.S. illegally from Mexico.

It is among several aggressive measures that Abbott has taken to deter migrants from crossing into the U.S. illegally.

Texas seized control of Shelby Park in January and began denying entry to Border Patrol agents, escalating the feud with the Biden administration. The Justice Department argued the wire impedes the government's ability to patrol the border and go to the aid of migrants in need of help.

However, not everyone wants Abbott to continue his standoff with the Biden administration as an Eagle Pass resident previously warned Abbott he may have gone too far after convoys of people demanding tighter immigration laws showed up in the border town.

In a video posted to Instagram by the organization Presente, Eagle Pass resident Jessie Fuentes said that "armed militias were inspired to invade our normally quiet, safe and peaceful border town" after Abbott held a press conference with other Republican governors earlier in February about the southern border.

Fuentes criticized Abbott for allegedly excluding the "voices of the very residents who live here."

"You are creating fiction, and using our community's resources to do it. You are telling a dangerous and misleading story about us, about the border, about our safe communities," he said.

Abbott's plans to expand barriers at the border come after the collapse of a border security deal that would have overhauled the asylum system to provide faster and tougher immigration enforcement, as well as allow the Department of Homeland Security to temporarily shut down the border to most migrants if there are an average of more than 5,000 crossing attempts per day over seven days.