While Republicans across the country continue to condemn President Biden’s border policies as “out of control”, one red state – Texas – continues its efforts to take immigration enforcement into its own hands.
Gov. Greg Abbott launched a controversial state-led border security effort called “Operation Lone Star” in 2021. Since then, Texas has installed razor wire, a floating barrier in the Rio Grande and deployed thousands of Texas state troopers and National Guard soldiers to patrol parts of the state’s 1,254-mile border with Mexico.
But that’s not all. The Texas legislature recently passed a new law making it a state crime to enter Texas illegally from a foreign country. The measure will make it easier for state and local law enforcement to arrest and prosecute people who cross the border from Mexico.
While Republicans across the country continue to condemn President Biden’s border policies as ‘out of control’, one red state – Texas – is continuing its efforts to take immigration enforcement into its own hands.
Gov. Greg Abbott launched a controversial state-led border security effort called “Operation Lone Star” in 2021. Since then, Texas has installed razor wire, a floating barrier in the Rio Grande and deployed thousands of Texas state troopers and National Guard soldiers to patrol parts of the state’s 1,254-mile border with Mexico.
But that’s not all. The Texas legislature recently passed a new law making it a state crime to enter Texas illegally from a foreign country. The measure will make it easier for state and local law enforcement to arrest and prosecute people who cross the border from Mexico.
Republican supporters of the bill, which is expected to be signed by Governor Abbott, point to the near-record number of migrant apprehensions on the state’s southern border under the Biden administration as evidence that Texas needs to step in to fill the gap and protect its own residents. The law was passed in the same week that U.S. Customs and Border Protection released statistics showing that unauthorised crossings in October totalled about 189,000 for the month.
“The problem with the open border, as we’ve heard many times throughout this session, has created cartel enterprises, terrorist infiltration, fentanyl crises, [and] human smuggling where people are treated as commodities,” said Senator Perry.
Marisa Limón Garza, executive director of the El Paso-based Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center, says mixed-status families, where at least one member is undocumented, could be split up because of the law’s statewide application. That means a police officer doesn’t necessarily have to see a person crossing the Rio Grande to question or detain them.
“This is really going to potentially tear families apart. This is just dangerous for health and well-being,” she says. While it’s still unclear how individual municipalities will enforce the law, Garza believes it will certainly affect public safety in border communities.
“It doesn’t have to be an actual practice for it to have a chilling effect in communities and affect community policing,” she says. “All it has to be is the specter of violence, the threat of harm.”
The law is sure to test the limits of state action on border enforcement. Immigration law experts argue that Texas is overstepping its authority because immigration and deportation procedures have long been the purview of the federal government, not the states.
David Donatti, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas, says that while states generally have a lot of freedom to enact laws that affect domestic policy, immigration matters fall outside that scope.
“The state of Texas can pass its own laws about the marketing of tobacco products, for example, about how to regulate Medicaid, about traffic laws. So these are traditional health, safety and welfare issues for the residents of a state that are traditionally the prerogative of the states,” Donatti said. “Immigration controls, deportation, are absolutely outside that window of what states are normally free to legislate.”
More than two dozen former immigration judges have also condemned the new law. In a statement released in mid-November, the judges, who were appointed by and served under Democrats and Republicans, said the law “should offend those who cherish our constitutional protections.” They reiterated that migrants, whether in the country legally or not, are entitled to certain protections and the right to seek asylum in the United States.
“The proposed Texas legislation, which would allow a state judge to issue a deportation order, is not lawful. Immigration is clearly a federal function. State legislatures cannot enact immigration laws for the same reasons that the United States Congress cannot enact Texas state legislation,” they wrote.
Despite these claims, Republicans in Texas are hoping that the conservative majority on the US Supreme Court will at least reconsider a 2012 ruling that reaffirmed that immigration is primarily a federal function. That’s if they even consider the case, which the bill’s sponsor in the Texas House of Representatives says is not guaranteed.
“It does not conflict with federal law, it is not preempted by federal law, and Texas has the constitutional right, duty and authority to protect its own borders,” state Rep. David Spiller, R-Jacksboro, told reporters in November.
Lawmakers have also heard from local sheriffs who oppose the bill because of the costs they will incur once it takes effect. Smith County Sheriff Larry Smith testified before a Texas House committee that every region will bear the burden because of the bill’s statewide application.
“Every county jail in the state of Texas could be impacted by these unlawful presence arrestees,” said Smith, who is also president of the Sheriff’s Association of Texas.
State Senator César Blanco, Democrat-El Paso, said his county had determined it would need to build a new detention centre with hundreds of beds to have enough space for immigrants prosecuted under the bill. That cost will be borne by the county because the law does not require reimbursement from the state.
“It’s going to cost $162 million and $60 million a year just to maintain the operations and the detention and the prosecution and the indigent defence and the court costs,” Blanco said during a debate on the floor of the Texas Senate.
The new law would take effect in three months.