Title: DOJ scoffs at Texas ‘invasion’ defense, says buoys violate Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo
Source: Dallas Morning News
Link: dallasnews DOT com/news/politics/2023/08/17/doj-scoffs-at-texas-invasion-defense-says-buoys-violate-treaty-of-guadalupe-hidalgo/
The Money-Quotes:
WASHINGTON — The Justice Department scoffed Thursday at Texas’ assertion it’s free to install anti-migrant buoys in the Rio Grande, regardless of treaties and federal law, because “Texas purportedly is being ‘invaded’” by migrants.
“Whether and when an `invasion’ occurs is a matter of foreign policy and national defense, which the Constitution specifically commits to the federal government,” the Justice Department argued.
[…]
Even if Texas is within its rights to secure its borders, “immigration is not the kind of `invasion’ contemplated by the Self-Defense Clause” of the Constitution, DOJ told the court.
The Supreme Court hasn’t directly addressed whether illegal immigration and drug smuggling can trigger a state’s emergency invasion powers.
But lower courts have shot down claims similar to Texas’.
The Justice Department dusted off an appellate ruling from 1996, rejecting a claim that New York state was suffering an immigrant “invasion.”
No, that court said.
An invasion is “armed hostility from another political entity, such as another state or foreign country that is intending to overthrow the state’s government.”
[…]
“We want to relitigate the Arizona vs. the United States case so that we can get a new precedent,” Abbott said on Fox News Radio, “to make clear that … states have the full authority to protect the sovereignty of the United States by denying illegal entry into our country.”
As the Justice Department sees it, that’s “a sweeping claim that States may ignore the will of Congress whenever their Governors unilaterally declare an `invasion.’”
