Opinion | The Biden-Abbott Border War Is a Mess, but It Is Not a Constitutional Crisis

The confrontation between state and federal officials in the border town of Eagle Pass, Texas, has created some wild hyperbole: From various commentators, it is the Fort Sumter for America’s second civil war; or the triumphant vindication of states’ rights at the expense of a weak president; or some twisted combination of both.

After the Supreme Court tentatively stepped in last week to rule that federal officials can remove razor wire that Texas installed along the Mexican border, many Democrats accused Gov. Greg Abbott of “defying” the Supreme Court, while many Republicans argued that Mr. Abbott should defy the court.

But what’s really happening in Texas isn’t a constitutional crisis. It’s a stress test for a potential constitutional crisis — and we’re all failing miserably.

The most recent escalation in the simmering feud between federal officials and Mr. Abbott over the state’s border measures came into greater public view after three migrants drowned in the Rio Grande by Eagle Pass. In its slow-burning effort to see how far a single state can push the existing envelope before the courts push back, Texas has ramped up its own efforts to deter unlawful immigration.

At first, those efforts mostly involved expanding the presence of National Guard and state law enforcement officers along the border. But since the middle of 2023, they have expanded both physically and in legal significance — including the placement of obstacles in the middle of the Rio Grande; the razor wire along a roughly 30-mile stretch of the border near Eagle Pass; and, most recently, the passage of new state legislation, set to go into effect in March, that effectively creates a state-level deportation system.

But the underlying dispute is over what U.S. immigration policy should look like. A real solution depends on striking a national balance between trying to disincentive and deter unauthorized entry into the country and treating those who nevertheless attempt such entry as fellow humans, at least some of whom have rights under federal laws to make the case for why they should be allowed to stay.