Greg Abbott Has New Supreme Court Plan After Justices Side With Biden

Texas Governor Greg Abbott believes the latest Supreme Court rulings suggest an "appetite" among justices to hand him a win on his border feud with the Biden administration.

"I don't know how and why the justices voted the way they did, but there seemed to be four justices who indicated, at least an appetite, to keep the case as is," Abbott told Fox News on Thursday.

The Supreme Court dealt the governor's Operation Lone Star a blow earlier this week after it sided with the Biden administration and allowed federal Border Patrol agents to remove the razor wire installed at the border by Texas officials under Abbott's orders. Monday's 5-4 ruling, which vacated an injunction from an appeals court that prevented the federal government from cutting the concertina wire, was issued without explanation.

"This is not over," Abbott responded to the justice's decision in a social media post. "Texas' razor wire is an effective deterrent to the illegal crossings Biden encourages. I will continue to defend Texas' constitutional authority to secure the border and prevent the Biden Admin from destroying our property."

The governor seemed hopeful on Thursday, saying that the lack of explanation for the Supreme Court ruling signaled that Texas could still win if the case were to return before the justices.

"There were no sentences or paragraphs or pages of an opinion written by the Supreme Court, so no one knows at all what they were thinking," Abbott said. "All we know is that they wanted to send it back to the Fifth Circuit."

The Texas Republican added that he believes the case could now get to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on its merits, he would also win if the case makes it back before the Supreme Court. He speculated that the justices who voted against him may have done so because there hadn't been much of a record in the courts of the case, but that it could be different should the matter return before the bench.

"The case that was presented to the United States Supreme Court actually did not have very much of a record upon which an appellate court can actually make a decision," Abbott said. "So, those who may not have voted in favor of Texas, or those who voted to send it back to the Fifth Circuit, they may have thought in their mind that there wasn't enough record for them to make a decision."

Because the Supreme Court ruling did not explicitly say that Border Patrol agents should have access to the public park on the shores of the Rio Grande that they've been blocked from nor did it say that Texas needed to cut the razor-wire that's been erected, the state has doubled down on its right to "self-defense" and continued to roll out wire that would block access to the 47-acre park in Eagle Pass.

"President Biden has violated his oath to faithfully execute immigration laws enacted by Congress," Abbott said in a Wednesday statement. "Instead of prosecuting immigrants for the federal crime of illegal entry, President Biden has sent his lawyers into federal courts to sue Texas for taking action to secure the border."

The White House has criticized Abbott's tactics, calling his moves "political stunts" that "make it harder and more dangerous for frontline personnel to do their jobs."

"Ultimately, we need adequate resources and policy changes to address our broken immigration system," the White House said in a Tuesday statement celebrating the recent Supreme Court ruling.

Update 01/25/24 12:49 p.m. ET: This article was updated with additional information.