WASHINGTON (Tribune News Service) — Texas Gov. Greg Abbott bluntly rejected the Justice Department’s demand to remove buoys from the Rio Grande on Monday, invoking the state’s right to defend its borders against an “invasion” of migrants.

“Texas will fully utilize its constitutional authority to deal with the crisis you have caused,” the three-term governor wrote, addressing his response to President Joe Biden.

Mexican officials bristle at “invasion” rhetoric, as do migrant advocates, who view the term as inflammatory and certain to stoke anti-immigrant fear and hatred.

The Justice Department set a Monday afternoon deadline last week for the state to promise it would remove the floating barriers, threatening to take Texas to court if it does not. The governments of both the United States and Mexico deem the barriers illegal, by treaty and law.

Abbott had already signaled his defiance on Friday by vowing to “See you in court, Mr. President.”

Biden has not personally weighed in on the buoys and razor wire Texas installed, a silence that has prompted criticism from fellow Democrats. But he and Abbott have clashed repeatedly over border security.

Abbott has taunted the president by sending busloads of migrants to the gates of Vice President Kamala Harris’ official residence, and hand-delivered a terse letter accusing him of shirking his duty to protect the border when Biden visited El Paso in January.

The White House has regularly bashed the governor for draconian tactics or even outright cruelty toward migrants.

Abbott’s letter, released three hours ahead of the deadline, blames Biden for any injuries that befall migrants trying to enter Texas without permission.

“Neither of us wants to see another death in the Rio Grande River [sic],” Abbott wrote, making clear that Texas will not comply with federal demands. “Yet your open-border policies encourage migrants to risk their lives by crossing illegally through the water, instead of safely and legally at a port of entry. Nobody drowns on a bridge.”

Immigration hardliners have urged leaders of Texas and other states to declare an “invasion” at the border.

That would purportedly trigger state authority under a provision in the U.S. Constitution that lets states “engage in War” if “invaded, or in such imminent Danger as will not admit of delay.”

“All of this is happening because you have violated your constitutional obligation to defend the States against invasion through faithful execution of federal laws,” Abbott wrote Monday.

“This will test the Article I, Section 10, Clause 3 power of states to defend themselves when the federal government refuses to do so,” tweeted Ken Cuccinelli, a former Republican attorney general of Virginia, and an immigration hardliner.

Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has called the state’s tactics to deter migrants “inhumane.”

Democratic lawmakers have called Abbott’s measures “barbaric.”

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre has called the 60 miles of concertina wire, along with the buoys, dangerous and “despicable.”

A memo obtained by The Dallas Morning News, from a Customs and Border Patrol official in the Eagle Pass sector, warned that the state’s barriers block visibility and impede federal agents from catching or helping migrants.

Last week, an email surfaced from state trooper raising alarm about forces deployed by Texas denying water to migrants, or even pushing migrants back into the river.

Migrants have drowned trying to evade the barriers. A woman suffering a miscarriage became entangled in razor wire, and other migrants have been badly injured, including children.

“Neither of us wants to see another death in the Rio Grande River [sic],” Abbott wrote Monday. “Yet your open-border policies encourage migrants to risk their lives by crossing illegally through the water, instead of safely and legally at a port of entry. Nobody drowns on a bridge.”

Despite Abbott’s efforts to frame the legal skirmish as a personal affront to Texas by Biden, the president himself has yet to publicly weigh in.

Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-San Antonio, blasted Biden for leaving the issue to underlings, calling it a “real failure.”

“The president should say something,” Castro told NPR on Monday. “I know the White House press secretary condemned it and the DOJ has now threatened legal action. But it’s important for the president of the United States to condemn it himself.”

On Thursday, the Justice Department warned Abbott in writing that Texas faces imminent legal action unless it promised by Monday to remove barriers installed recently under Operation Lone Star, which he launched two years ago to beef up border security.

Abbott openly boasted that Texas ignored requirements to seek permission from the State Department and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers before installing razor wire and floating barriers at or in the Rio Grande to deter illegal migration.

The federal government contends the barriers are illegal under federal law that covers navigable waterways, and under treaties from 1944 and 1970 that govern the shared waters of the U.S. and Mexico.

Mexico has cited those treaties in declaring Texas’ barriers illegal, demanding the state relent or, if it doesn’t, that Washington remove them.

Abbott launched Operation Lone Star two years ago, sending National Guard and state troopers to the border when Biden took office, halted construction of the border wall promoted by predecessor Donald Trump, and began to dismantle many of Trump’s harsh immigration policies.

The Legislature’s latest infusion for the upcoming two-year budget cycle pushed the state’s outlay to nearly $10 billion.

In his letter to Biden, Abbott cites “your record-breaking level of illegal immigration.”

In fact, illegal crossings are far below last summer’s record-setting peak, dropping 70% since the Biden administration ended Title 42 earlier this year. That’s the pandemic-era emergency public health measure invoked by the Trump administration to keep out asylum-seekers.

Democrats emphasize the progress as they denounce tactics they see as “barbaric.” Republicans point out that despite the drop, illegal crossings remain above Trump- and Obama-era levels.

The White House has long bristled at the idea that border enforcement is lax.

In a letter Friday pressing Biden to take action against Texas, nearly 90 Democrats in the U.S. House, including all 13 Texans, expressed “profound alarm” after the reports of drownings and injuries related to the razor wire and buoys.

“We urge you to assert your authority over federal immigration policy and foreign relations… to stop Governor Abbott’s dangerous and cruel actions,” the lawmakers wrote.

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