Judge blocks Texas troopers from stopping migrant transports

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — A federal judge Tuesday blocked Texas from allowing state troopers to stop vehicles carrying migrants on the grounds that they may spread COVID-19 as worries and new cases are rising along the U.S.-Mexico border.

The temporary order by U.S. District Judge Kathleen Cardone of El Paso is at least a short-term victory for the Biden administration, which had warned that Republican Gov. Greg Abbott's plan would create more problems amid high levels of summer border crossings in Texas —- particularly in the Rio Grande Valley, which one U.S. official called the “epicenter of the current surge.”

In a sign of the growing strain, local officials there who have rebuffed Abbott's hardline immigration actions to jail border crossers and build new barrier declared a local state of disaster this week as COVID-19 cases climb and capacity at migrant shelters is stretched.

Cardone said Abbott's directive would have the effect of “exacerbating the spread of COVID-19.” She scheduled another hearing for next week.

Abbott's office did not immediately comment on the ruling.

Like Texas, the Biden administration is also raising concerns about the much more contagious delta variant as large numbers of noncitizens continue arriving at Texas' southern border. On Monday, the Centers for Disease Control renewed emergency powers that allow federal authorities to expel families at the border on grounds it prevents the spread of the coronavirus.

But in suing Texas, the Justice Department accused Abbott of potentially worsening the spread of COVID-19, saying in court filings that impeding the transfer of migrants would prolong the detention of unaccompanied children in “increasingly crowded” facilities.

Hidalgo County Judge Richard Cortez, a Democrat who is the top elected...