Given the rationale behind the recent SCOTUS decision in Department of Homeland Security v. Texas, Governor Greg Abbott's election year efforts to block the U.S. Border Patrol's access to the Rio Grande in Texas amount to defiance of a federal court order.

President Joe Biden can and should assure State compliance with federal law by taking a page from previous Presidents by exercising his power to federalize both the TX National Guard and any members of the FL National Guard who are now impeding Border Patrol access along the pertinent stretch of the U.S. border with Mexico.

The Court's decision to "vacate" a 5th Circuit Court of Appeals injunction, pending appeal, did a great deal more than simply affirm the right of federal Border Patrol agents to remove razor wire erected by the Texas National Guard along 29-miles of the Rio Grande.

By granting U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar's emergency Application in the case, SCOTUS affirmed the federal government's contention that, under the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution, "state law cannot be applied to restrain...federal agents from carrying out their federally authorized activities".

As Prelogar argued to the High Court...

As the clock ticked down to the last day to act on Friday, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito issued a temporary administrative stay.

His brief order granted approval, for now, of U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar's compelling 47-page Application [PDF] filed on behalf of the Federal Government, seeking an administrative stay on the entirety of the controversial effort by an activist Donald Trump-appointed judge in Texas who imposed a nationwide ban on the FDA-approved abortion pill, mifepristone.

The temporary administrative hold, keeping the status quo in place only through Wednesday, is meant to allow the full Court time to decide the broader request for a stay from both the Government and a manufacturer of the popular abortion medicine. The Solicitor General asked the Court to issue "a stay pending the consideration and disposition of [the FDA's] appeal to...the Fifth Circuit and, if the Court of Appeal affirms, pending the timely filing of a petition for a writ of certiorari and any further proceedings" before the Supreme Court.

In other words, please keep the status quo not only for the the FDA's science-based original approval issued in 2000 but also for the FDA's scientific decisions, made between 2016 and 2023, to better facilitate availability, distribution and safe use of mifepristone. The Solicitor General has asked for that status quo to remain in place until the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has actually heard full argument in the appeal of the ruling by Judge Mathew Kacsmaryk (the far-right U.S. District Court judge who hears every federal case filed in its Amarillo, TX branch) and then, if needed, throughout any additional appeals made to SCOTUS on the rulings of both lower courts.

While the matter of seeking a temporary stay, pending appeals, will now be decided by the same U.S. Supreme Court, whose right-wing majority, in Dobbs v. Jackson's Women's Health Org., overturned the Court's 50-year old landmark reproductive rights decision in Roe v. Wade last year, Prelogar parried the Court's anti-abortion bias by arguing that the stakes in this case are, by no means, confined to questions only about the approval and use of mifepristone...