Greg Abbott under fire in new court case

Federal government hits back at finance billfrom the Texas governor's team. Greg Abbott arguing that their “motion to dismiss the motion to dismiss” should be rejected for “lack of procedure”.

The move comes amid an ongoing legal dispute over the state of Texas' deployment of floating buoys, laced with saw-shaped metal sheets, in the Rio Grande to prevent illegal migrants from crossing.

In July 2023, the federal government filed a lawsuit claiming that the buoys violated the Rivers and Harbors Appropriations Act of 1899 by blocking a navigable waterway and should therefore be removed. This claim is disputed by the state of Texas, which argues that the Rio Grande is not navigable where the buoys were installed, rendering the 1899 law moot.

Texas filed a counterclaim seeking to dismiss the original complaint, arguing that the original court filings did not contain the “waiver of sovereign immunity” necessary to establish the authority of the complaint. Attorneys representing the U.S. government filed a counterclaim to that request, to which Texas responded with a “motion to vacate the motion to dismiss.”

However, the federal government argued that the motion was invalid because it was filed outside the permitted time limit and should therefore be dismissed by the court.

In a court filing released July 1, the federal government's legal team argued that Texas “has not invoked any rule or authority to seek 'dismissal' of a 'motion,' and there is none.”

They continued: “The Court should dismiss Texas' motion as procedurally improper and discourage similar filings in the future by making clear that any party opposing a motion must follow the same rules that all other practitioners in this federal court respectfully follow in filing a response in opposition.”

Federal attorneys also claimed that Texas was trying to “get a second chance” by seeking to have the case dismissed by filing a so-called “motion to strike” followed by a separate “opposition.”

Newsweek contacted attorneys for the federal government and the state of Texas for comment via email.

Talk to Newsweek A Justice Department lawyer declined to comment beyond their court documents.

On June 25, Magistrate Judge Dustin Howell granted a motion by Abbott's legal team to exclude Adrian Cortez, who works for the International Boundary and Water Commission (IBWC), from further testimony in the case.

In a court filing, Texas lawyers said the federal government “cannot meet its burden of demonstrating by a preponderance of the evidence that Mr. Cortez has relevant and reliable opinions about the decision factors and procedures for releasing water from the Amistad Dam.”

The evidence Cortez was supposed to provide could have supported the federal government's claim that the Rio Grande is navigable where the buoys were installed, which would be a violation of the Rivers and Harbors Appropriations Act.

Texas attorneys continued: “Mr. Cortez is a fact witness and has admitted that he has no expert opinion in this case on the decision factors for water releases from Amistad Dam.”

Data released by U.S. Customs and Border Protection earlier this year showed a significant decrease in encounters between law enforcement and suspected illegal migrants in the first three months of 2024, compared to the same period in 2023.

On Monday, the bodies of four suspected illegal migrants were found in the desert near the Santa Teresa border crossing in New Mexico by Border Patrol agents.