The order also acknowledged that federal officials need the ability to reach migrants in distress, authorizing them to remove or cut the wire to provide emergency medical aid.

Moses, of the Del Rio division of U.S. District Court, scheduled a hearing Nov. 7 to consider Texas’s request for a longer-term ruling against the Biden administration.

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The case is one of several legal battles between Gov. Gregg Abbott (R) and the Biden administration over the governor’s state-led border crackdown, Operation Lone Star. Immigration and border security matters are generally the purview of the federal government, but Abbott’s $4 billion campaign has mobilized thousands of National Guard troops and lined the banks of the Rio Grande with thickets of concertina wire in an attempt to stop illegal entries.

“Another win for Texas & our historic border mission,” Abbott wrote on X, formerly Twitter, in response to Moses’s order. “Biden created this crisis & has tried to block us at every turn.”

Illegal crossings remain near record levels, surpassing 2 million for the second consecutive year during the 2023 fiscal year that ended Sept. 30. The span of the U.S.-Mexico border near Eagle Pass covered by Moses’s order has been among the busiest, with tens of thousands of migrants per month wading through the river or floating across on cheap rafts. Drownings are frequent.

The razor wire placed by Texas authorities has maimed and bloodied migrants at several locations. There is little evidence it has stopped people from reaching the United States.

After border-crossers used blankets and other garments to try to protect themselves from lacerations while crawling under or over the barrier, federal authorities cut a path through the wire to allow safe passage.

Biden officials say the sharp blades pose a hazard to U.S. agents as well as migrants.

Border Patrol agents have cut through the wire in other instances when groups of migrant families have arrived to the U.S. side of the riverbanks and become stranded. Because U.S. immigration law allows anyone who reaches U.S. territory to request humanitarian protection, Border Patrol agents generally take migrants into custody once they arrive to the U.S. side of the river.

Luis Miranda, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, declined to comment on the judge’s order.

Miranda said Border Patrol agents “have a responsibility under federal law to take those who have crossed onto U.S. soil without authorization into custody for processing” and “to act when there are conditions that put our workforce or migrants at risk.”

The Department of Homeland Security is complying with Moses’s order, Miranda said.

Moses said a subsequent hearing is needed to sort out the competing legal claims raised by the dispute, including instances in which private landowners have asked Texas officials to protect their property with the barriers.

The judge described the case as an intersection of “the private property rights of the persons consenting to the placement of the concertina wire on their land, the Plaintiff’s right to assist private property owners and avoid costs to the Plaintiff; and the Defendants’ responsibilities over national security and border security, and its powers to effectuate its duties, up to and including the destruction of private or state property.”

While the Biden administration has not challenged Texas’s right to place razor wire and fencing along the border, the Department of Justice is suing Abbott over a barrier made up of floating buoys in the Rio Grande.

In September, a federal judge ordered the state to move that barrier to the U.S. side of the river, but an appeals court stayed the ruling and allowed Texas to leave it in place. Spanning roughly 1,000 feet, the buoys are designed to prevent migrants from swimming or wading to the U.S. side, but state officials did not seek authorization from the federal government before installing them.

Construction activity in the river channel is regulated by international treaty agreements with Mexico, and the Mexican government opposes the buoy system on the grounds that it is likely to increase drownings.

Abbott and other Texas Republicans are seeking to broaden Operation Lone Star. Since 2022, Texas has sent about 60,000 migrants on buses to New York City, Chicago and other cities run by Democrats, according to the latest figures from Abbott’s office.

Last week, state representatives voted for measures that would spend more than $1 billion on additional border fencing, while increasing penalties for human smuggling.

The most controversial measure pending before Texas lawmakers would create a state crime for illegally entering Texas from Mexico, giving state police the authority to arrest violators and return them to Mexico — enforcement activities generally reserved for federal authorities.