The White House and Mexico’s president came out strongly against a new Texas law on Tuesday that would allow police to arrest migrants crossing into the US illegally and empower local judges to order them to leave the country.
Also on Tuesday, civil rights groups and Texas’ largest border county filed a lawsuit calling the measure, which Republican Governor Greg Abbott signed into law less than 24 hours earlier, an unconstitutional overreach of the US government’s authority over immigration.
The Texas law, which takes effect in March, could be a test of how aggressively a state can restrict immigration amid a surge in illegal crossings in remote areas that has increased pressure on Congress to reach a deal on asylum. Abbott said Tuesday that Texas was taking such dramatic measures because of frustration with the Biden administration’s immigration policies.
White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre criticised the state’s approach as extreme and dehumanising to immigrants. She would not say whether the Justice Department would challenge the law.
“This is not who we are as a country,” she said.
The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Austin, was brought by El Paso County along with the American Civil Liberties Union and the Texas Civil Rights Project. It was filed against the head of the Texas Department of Public Safety, whose troopers could arrest migrants, and the El Paso County District Attorney, whose office could prosecute cases in this border community.
El Paso County District Attorney Bill Hicks said he woke up on Tuesday morning unaware that he was being sued by his own county. He told reporters the lawsuit could reach the US Supreme Court, a scenario some Texas Republicans welcome even as they defend the law as constitutional.
A DPS spokesman declined to comment in an email on Tuesday, citing the pending litigation.
Abbott signed the bill on Monday in front of a section of border fence in Brownville. He was flanked by two signs in English and Spanish: “Warning. It is illegal to cross here. Punishable by deportation or imprisonment”.
Republican state Rep. David Spiller, who carried the law in the Texas House, said in an interview Tuesday that the vast majority of arrests under the law would occur within 50 miles (80 kilometres) of the border, though it could be enforced statewide. He said there must be evidence that someone is crossing illegally, whether it is an officer witnessing it firsthand or footage from border cameras.
“I believe Texas and other states have the absolute right to enforce their borders,” Spiller said.
Illegal crossings have topped 10,000 on some days this month, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection Acting Commissioner Troy Miller, who has called the number of daily arrivals “unprecedented”.
The measure allows any Texas law enforcement officer to arrest people suspected of entering the country illegally. Once in custody, they could either comply with a Texas judge’s order to leave the US or be charged with a misdemeanour for illegal entry. Migrants who don’t leave could be rearrested on more serious felony charges.
Opponents have called it the most dramatic attempt by a state to police immigration since a 2010 Arizona law – denounced by critics as the “show me your papers” law – that was largely struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court. The lawsuit cites the Supreme Court’s 2012 ruling on the Arizona law, which said the federal government has exclusive authority over immigration.
“The bill overrides bedrock constitutional principles and defies federal immigration law while harming Texans, especially brown and black communities,” Adriana Piñon, legal director of the ACLU of Texas, said in a statement.
Earlier on Tuesday, ACLU affiliates in Oklahoma, New Mexico, Arkansas, Louisiana, Arizona, Texas, and San Diego and Imperial counties in California issued a travel advisory warning of potential civil and constitutional rights violations for travellers passing through Texas.
Mexico’s President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said he feared the law could lead to racial profiling and family separation. He accused Abbott of trying to score political points with people’s lives.
Other measures taken by Texas as part of Abbott’s border security efforts include busing more than 65,000 migrants to cities across America since August 2022 and installing razor wire along the banks of the Rio Grande.