Texas AG says state not backing down from Shelby Park takeover in Eagle Pass

As the Friday night deadline approached for a Homeland Security request for the State of Texas to open up Shelby Park in Eagle Pass to federal authorities, the state’s attorney general shot back a letter saying they aren’t backing down.

In a letter Friday, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton disputed a claim by DHS officials in a previous letter that federal authorities have rights to Shelby Park lands that were established during the building border barrier in 2008.

“Your own map shows that most of the tracts you reference fall outside the perimeter area secured by Texas at Shelby Park,” Paxton wrote in the three-page letter to DHS General Counsel Jonathan Meyer.

“With respect to parcels identified in your maps that are actually in the vicinity of the park, publicly available records suggest the United States does not even purport to own what your latest letter claims … Based on our necessarily cursory review, current records from Maverick County do not support that claim,” Paxton wrote.