A federal appeals court on Wednesday ruled that Texas has the right to build a razor wire border wall to deter illegal immigration into the Lone Star State. 

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott announced the ruling on X, saying President Biden was “wrong to cut our razor wire.” 

“We continue adding more razor wire border barrier,” the Republican leader wrote. 

Wednesday’s 2-1 decision by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals clears the way for Texas to pursue a lawsuit accusing the Biden administration of trespassing without having to remove the fencing.

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It also reversed a federal judge’s November 2023 refusal to grant a preliminary injunction to Texas as the state resisted federal efforts to remove fencing along the Rio Grande in the vicinity of Eagle Pass, Texas.

Circuit Judge Kyle Duncan, a Trump appointee during the president-elect’s first term, wrote for Wednesday’s majority that Texas was trying only to safeguard its own property, not “regulate” U.S. Border Patrol, and was likely to succeed in its trespass claims.

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Duncan said the federal government waived its sovereign immunity and rejected its concerns that a ruling by Texas would impede the enforcement of immigration law and undermine the government’s relationship with Mexico.

A Venezuelan immigrant asks Texas National Guard troops to let his family pass through razor wire after they crossed the Rio Grande from Mexico in Eagle Pass, Texas, Sept. 27, 2023. (John Moore/Getty Images)

He said the public interest “supports clear protections for property rights from government intrusion and control” and ensuring that federal immigration law enforcement does not “unnecessarily intrude into the rights of countless property owners.”

Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton called the ruling a “huge win for Texas.” 

“The Biden Administration has been enjoined from damaging, destroying, or otherwise interfering with Texas’s border fencing,” Paxton wrote in a post on X. “We sued immediately when the federal government was observed destroying fences to let illegal aliens enter, and we’ve fought every step of the way for Texas sovereignty and security.”

Migrants attempt to cross the southern border in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, in February. (David Peinado/Anadolu via Getty Images)

The White House has been locked in legal battles with Texas and other states that have tried to deter illegal immigration. 

In May, the full 5th Circuit heard arguments in a separate case between Texas and the White House over whether the state can keep a 1,000-foot floating barrier on the Rio Grande.

The appeals court is also reviewing a judge’s order blocking a Texas law that would allow state officials to arrest, prosecute and order the removal of people in the country illegally.

Incoming Trump border czar Tom Homan reacted to news of death threats against Trump nominees on Wednesday and said he now takes the death threats he has previously received seriously. 

“I have not taken this serious up to this point,” Homan told Fox News anchor Gillian Turner on “The Story” on Wednesday, referring to previous death threats made against him and his family. 

“Now that I know what’s happened in the last 24 hours. I will take it a little more serious. But look, I’ve been dealing with this. When I was the ICE director in the first administration, I had numerous death threats. I had a security detail with me all the time. Even after I retired, death threats continued and even after I retired as the ICE Director. I had U.S. Marshals protection for a long time to protect me and my family.”

Homan explained that what “doesn’t help” the situation is the “negative press” around Trump. 

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“I’m not in the cabinet, but, you know, I’ve read numerous hit pieces. I mean, you know, I’m a racist and, you know, I’m the father of family separation, all this other stuff. So the hate media doesn’t help at all because there are some nuts out there. They’ll take advantage. So that doesn’t help.”

Homan’s comments come shortly after Fox News Digital first reported that nearly a dozen of President-elect Donald Trump’s cabinet nominees and other appointees tapped for the incoming administration were targeted Tuesday night with “violent, unAmerican threats to their lives and those who live with them,” prompting a “swift” law enforcement response.

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Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump pumps his fist as he arrives to speak at a campaign event at Nassau Coliseum, Wednesday, Sept.18, 2024, in Uniondale, N.Y. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon) (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

The “attacks ranged from bomb threats to ‘swatting,’” according to Trump-Vance transition spokeswoman and incoming White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt.

“Last night and this morning, several of President Trump’s Cabinet nominees and administration appointees were targeted in violent, unAmerican threats to their lives and those who live with them,” she told Fox News Digital on Wednesday. “In response, law enforcement acted quickly to ensure the safety of those who were targeted. President Trump and the entire Transition team are grateful for their swift action.” 

Sources told Fox News Digital that John Ratcliffe, the nominee to be CIA director, Pete Hegseth, the nominee for secretary of defense, and Rep. Elise Stefanik, the nominee for UN ambassador, were among those targeted. Brooke Rollins, who Trump has tapped to be secretary of agriculture, and Lee Zeldin, Trump’s nominee to be EPA administrator, separately revealed they were also targeted. 

Threats were also made against Trump’s Labor Secretary nominee, GOP Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer, and former Trump attorney general nominee Matt Gaetz’s family. 

Republican candidate Donald Trump is seen with blood on his face surrounded by secret service agents as he is taken off the stage at a campaign event at Butler Farm Show Inc. in Butler, Pennsylvania, July 13, 2024.  Rebecca Droke/AFP via Getty Images (Rebecca Droke/AFP via Getty Images)

Homan told Fox News that he is “not going to be intimidated by these people” and “I’m not going to let them silence me.”

“What I’ve learned today I’ll start taking a little more serious.”

Homan added that he believes “we need to have a strong response once we find out is behind all this.”

“It’s illegal to threaten someone’s life. And we need to follow through with that.”

The threats on Tuesday night came mere months after Trump survived two assassination attempts.

Fox News Digital’s Brooke Singman contributed to this report

In a major victory for Democrats, first-time candidate Derek Tran defeated Republican Rep. Michelle Steel in a hotly contested Orange County congressional race that became one of the most expensive in the country.

Tran will be the first Vietnamese American to represent a district that is home to Little Saigon and the largest population of people of Vietnamese descent outside of Vietnam.

The race was the third-to-last to be called in the country. As Orange County and Los Angeles County counted mail ballots, Steel’s margin of victory shrank to 58 votes before Tran took the lead 11 days after the election. Tran was leading by 613 votes when Steel conceded Wednesday.

Tran was born in the U.S. to Vietnamese refugee parents. He said his father fled Vietnam after the fall of Saigon, but his boat capsized, killing his wife and children. Tran’s father returned to Vietnam, where he met and married Tran’s mother, and the couple later immigrated to the United States.

“Only in America can you go from refugees fleeing with nothing but the clothes on your back to becoming a member of Congress in just one generation,” Tran said in a post on X.

“This victory is a testament to the spirit and resilience of our community,” he said. “My parents came to this country to escape oppression and pursue the American Dream, and their story reflects the journey of so many here in Southern California.”

In a statement Wednesday, Steel thanked her volunteers, staff and family for their work on her campaign, saying: “Everything is God’s will and, like all journeys, this one is ending for a new one to begin.” Steel filed paperwork Monday to seek re-election in 2026.

The 45th District was among the country’s most competitive races, critical to both parties as they battled to control the House of Representatives.

With Steel’s loss, Republicans hold 219 seats in the House, barely above the 218-seat threshold needed to control the chamber.

Two races have yet to be called. A recount is underway in Iowa’s 1st Congressional District, where a Republican incumbent is leading her Democrat challenger by fewer than 800 votes. And in California’s agricultural San Joaquin Valley, Democrat Adam Gray holds a slender lead over GOP Rep. John Duarte, but the race remains too close to call.

Steel and Tran both focused heavily on outreach to Asian American voters, who make up a plurality of the district. The district cuts a C-shaped swath through 17 cities in Orange County and Los Angeles County, including Garden Grove, Westminster, Fountain Valley, Buena Park and Cerritos.

Born to South Korean parents and raised in Japan, Steel broke barriers in 2020 when she became one of three Korean American women elected to the House. She leaned on anti-communist messaging to reach out to older voters who fled Vietnam after the fall of Saigon in 1975.

Tran also focused on Vietnamese American voters and Vietnamese-language media, hoping that voters would leave their loyalty to the Republican Party in order to support a representative who shared their background.

Steel became a prime target for Democrats because, although she is a Republican, voters in the 45th District supported President Biden in 2020. The two-term congresswoman is a formidable fundraiser with deep ties to the Orange County GOP, including through her husband, Shawn Steel, the former chairman of the California Republican Party.

The Republican establishment and outside groups, including the cryptocurrency lobby and Elon Musk’s super PAC, spent heavily to defend Steel.

In a sign of the seat’s importance to Democrats, Gov. Gavin Newsom, former President Clinton and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) all joined Tran on the campaign trail in the weeks before the election.

The race was marked by allegations of “red baiting” after the Steel campaign sent Vietnamese-language mailers to households in Little Saigon that showed Tran next to the hammer-and-sickle emblem of the Chinese Communist Party and Mao Zedong.

Steel’s campaign said that the Tran campaign had been running Vietnamese-language ads on Facebook that accused Steel’s husband of “selling access” to the Chinese Communist Party and that said Steel could not be trusted to stand up to China.

Tran’s win is a key victory for Democrats, who fought to flip five highly competitive seats held by Republicans in California — more than any other state. Republicans were pushing to flip a district in coastal Orange County represented by Rep. Katie Porter (D-Irvine).

Democrat Dave Min beat Republican Scott Baugh in the costly contest for Porter’s seat and Democrat George Whitesides flipped the district represented by Republican Rep. Mike Garcia in L.A. County’s Antelope Valley.

In the agricultural Central Valley, Republican Rep. David Valadao easily won reelection over Democrat Rudy Salas. The race in the San Joaquin Valley between Gray, the Democrat, and Rep. Duarte, who won two years ago by 564 votes, remained too close to be called.