How Eagle Pass became the centerpiece of Abbott’s efforts to secure the border

Eagle Pass, Texas, has been one of the hot spots of the ongoing migrant crisis at the southern border – as well as the epicenter of a broader stalemate between Texas and the Biden administration over how to handle the crisis, which has led to multiple high-profile battles in the nation’s highest courts.

Drone footage taken by Fox News on Tuesday showed a relatively quiet scene at the crossing point, where Mexico is a stone’s throw away. 

The presence of the crisis remains, however, with Texas having set up razor wire and shipping containers along the border and National Guardsmen patrolling the area.

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Texas National Guardsmen wait near a boat ramp where law enforcement enter the Rio Grande at Shelby Park on Jan. 26, 2024, in Eagle Pass, Texas. (Michael Gonzalez/Getty Images)

Texas and the Biden administration have feuded over how to handle border security since the start of the crisis. Abbott launched Operation Lone Star in 2021, which surged resources and personnel to the border, in response to what he claimed was a lack of action from the Biden administration to handle the then-surging crisis.

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Abbott’s administration began building a border wall, constructed razor wire along the Rio Grande, set up floating buoys in the river and deployed the National Guard. In December, Abbott signed an anti-illegal immigration law that would allow police to arrest illegal immigrants and for judges to order them deported.

Those efforts led to legal battles with the administration. Texas sued the administration for cutting the razor wire to allow migrants deeper into the interior, while the administration sued over the presence of the buoys in the Rio Grande.

A Texas National Guard soldier stands atop a barrier of shipping containers while patrolling at Shelby Park on March 20, 2024, in Eagle Pass, Texas. (Brandon Bell/Getty Images))

In January, those tensions boiled over when Texas seized Shelby Park, a key staging area in Eagle Pass, and Border Patrol was denied entry to the area. Abbott said Texas has a right to “self-defense” against what he has called federal inaction in the face of a migrant “invasion.”

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“[President Biden’s] actions have caused an unprecedented invasion that we must defend against,” Abbott said.

The administration has said Texas’ actions impede upon federal enforcement of immigration law and make the areas less safe for migrants and Border Patrol.

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“Whether it is leaving migrants on the side of the road in the dead of winter, installing razor wire to make Border Patrol’s job more dangerous, promoting extreme and unconstitutional laws like S.B. 4, or his latest actions in Eagle Pass, Governor Abbott has repeatedly proven that he is not interested in solutions and only seeks to politicize the border,” the White House said in a statement during the Shelby Pass drama. 

The anti-illegal immigration law was back in the courts this month, when the Supreme Court briefly allowed the law to go back into effect before kicking it back to the Fifth Circuit – which then blocked it again amid ongoing arguments on the merits. 

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Separately, there were a record-high number of migrant encounters in February, suggesting that numbers could be similar or even higher than those seen last year.