On Monday, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed a bill that would make illegal border-crossing a state offense and allows state law enforcement officers to arrest migrants.
The legislation, Senate Bill 4, will go into effect on March 5, 2024.
“The goal of Senate Bill 4 is to stop the tidal wave of illegal entry into Texas,” Abbott said in a pre-signing speech on Monday. The bill makes it a criminal offense for illegal entrance into Texas from a foreign nation with a potential prison sentence of up to 20 years.
The bill also “provides a mechanism to order an illegal immigrant to return to the foreign nation from which they entered,” Abbott said.
Gov. Abbott blames Biden administration for increase in border crossings
Before signing the bill into law, Abbott said, “Four years ago, the United States had the fewest illegal border crossings in about 40 years.” He attributed the lower number to Trump administration policies.
He continued, “Now under President (Joe) Biden, he has eliminated all of those policies and has done nothing to halt illegal immigration.”
A lawsuit filed by ACLU in El Paso County says the bill “violates the supremacy clause of the U.S. Constitution,” claiming immigration is under the federal government’s jurisdiction. It also asks the federal courts to declare SB4 unlawful and prohibit Texas from enforcing it.
A senior staff attorney at ACLU, David Donatti, told ABC, “There is no U.S. federal analogue to a lone officer in their own discretion escorting someone to the border and saying get out. That is a very scary prospect that is categorically different from what the federal government does.”
He added, “In the federal system people would be able to present their claims to an immigration officer and an immigration judge.”
During his pre-signing speech, Abbott said big cities like Chicago and New York City also feel the effects of Biden’s immigration policies. “But I don’t think they truly know the magnitude of the damage caused to the United States by Joe Biden,” he said. “Three times the number of residents of Chicago have entered illegally under Joe Biden, and about equal to the total population of New York City.”
The White House says SB4 will not make Texas a safer place
The White House responded Tuesday to Texas signing SB4 into law. Press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre called SB4 an “extreme law that will not and does not make the communities in Texas safer. It just doesn’t.”
She continued, “It’s very much in line with what many Republicans like to do, or tend to do, which is demonize immigrants and also dehumanize immigrants. This is not who we are as a country, this is not who we should be as a country. Communities should not be individually targeted and put into harms way.”
Another bill signed by Abbott late last month increases the minimum sentence of anyone caught human trafficking or operating a stash house from two years to 10, The Texas Tribune reported.