'You should be in cuffs': Greg Abbott shredded over 'hogwash' letter defying Supreme Court

The state of Texas lost in its clash with the Border Patrol at the Supreme Court, with the justices allowing federal agents to clear away razor wire the state National Guard unilaterally installed to impede border agents from apprehending migrants in favor of its own blockade. But in a one-page letter issued shortly after, Gov. Greg Abbott flouted the court's ruling, proclaiming the migrants at the border to be an "invasion" and invoking Texas' "right to self-defense" as supreme over federal immigration laws.

Abbott's statement swiftly earned cheers from Trump-supporting voters and lawmakers — but it also triggered scorn bordering on downright horror from attorneys and legal observers.

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"MAGA now has the wedge to incite a civil war and war with Mexico it has long sought. It’s all so obvious it seems inevitable and the fact that ACB is the deciding vote is [laughing emoji]," wrote Conde Nast legal affairs editor Luke Zaleski. "When Putin finally gets his North America fracture thanks to MAGA can we admit the insurrection happened?"

"Did John Calhoun write this?" wrote Georgia State law professor Anthony Michael Kreis.

"This is, to be blunt, hogwash. Article I, Section 10 of the Constitution does not give Texas a right to carry out immigration law. Here's what it says. Texas is not being 'actually invaded' and laying razor wire is not 'engaging in war' — which anyone with two brain cells can see," wrote immigration attorney and policy strategist Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, noting that other states have tried this argument in court decades ago and been smacked down. "If Texas is actually 'waging war' under the Constitution, as Abbott suggests here, then someone should demand that he answer whether Texas is following the Geneva Conventions and treating migrants as full-blown prisoners of war. The entire idea is stupid."

"I read this in the original Confederate," wroteThe Nation justice correspondent Elie Mystal.

"Your dissatisfaction, (or, more to the point, politically based contrivances) do not, in any way, confer upon the State of Texas the power to usurp Federal Authority, and the policing of the Border is solely under the jurisdiction of the US Government," wrote attorney Raymond J. Mollica. "You should be in cuffs."

Even Ken Cuccinelli, an immigration hardliner who served in the Department of Homeland Security in the Trump administration, pointed out that Abbott's actions here are all politics and no legal substance.

"I read the TX brief in the razor wire case," wrote Cuccinelli. "Texas literally doesn't EVER - that is not a typo - cite Art. I, Sec. 10. So this is a really tough sounding letter, but Texas is not making this case in court. Actions speak louder than words."