The attorneys general of Missouri and Texas have joined to bring a new lawsuit against the Biden administration over border security measures, attempting to compel the government to resume construction of the southern border wall amid the ongoing crisis.
Attorneys General Eric Schmitt of Missouri and Ken Paxton of Texas argued in their statements on Thursday that the administration's decision to halt construction of the wall when President Joe Biden took office redirected funds appropriated for the project, violating the separation of powers and the Constitution's Take Care Clause.
"Time and again, the Biden administration has refused to take concrete action to quell the worsening border crisis, inviting the cartels and human drug smugglers to take advantage of our porous border," Schmitt said in a statement. "Without a border wall, illegal immigrants, coyotes, and bad actors can simply march across our southern border and into the interior. The border wall needs to be built, the funds have been appropriated to continue to build the wall, and yet the Biden Administration outright refuses to do so."
The Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2020, according to the Missouri AG's office, allots more than $1.3 billion for "construction of a barrier system along the southwest border."
According to the statement, the same amount of money was appropriated in the FY2021 DHS Appropriations Act. As a result, the Biden administration reportedly reallocated approximately $3 billion that Congress had set out for the construction of the wall.
In his turn, the Texas AG stated that the White House's "flat refusal to use funds that have already been set aside by Congress to build the border wall is not only illegal and unconstitutional."
"It’s also wrong, and it leaves states like Texas and Missouri footing the bill," Paxton said in a statement. "I will not sit idly by while this Administration wreaks more havoc on our state."
Paxton noted that the current legal action was his "seventh border security and immigration-related lawsuit against President Biden and his lawless executive agencies."
"I won’t rest until Texas is safe from the disaster he created and the disaster he continues to investigate," he assured his constituents.
"I'll just say to the President of the United States, 'Let's go Brandon!, we'll see you in court," Paxton concluded his Thursday El Paso press conference.
After the press conference, the attorney general shared a video meme in which, after Paxton says "Let's Go, Brandon," to a cheering crowd, glasses from the meme "deal with it" and the MAGA cap fall on Paxton.
During the news conference, Schmitt stated that the president believes in open borders and amnesty, then added, "If you're not going to do your job, we're going to make you do your job."
Paxton and Schmitt were successful in a lawsuit earlier this year that forced the government to continue enforcing the Trump administration's "Remain in Mexico" policy. That prior complaint is still being fought in court by the Biden administration.
Under the incumbent administration, illegal border crossings on the US-Mexico border have reached a 20-year high. According to government figures, the United States broke another monthly record in August with 208,000 migrant encounters at the border, bringing the total for the preceding twelve months to over 1.5 million.