Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) on Monday signed into law a controversial bill putting immigration enforcement into the hands of state officers, allowing them to arrest anyone suspected of crossing the United States’ southern border illegally and expel them out of the country.
The measure, known as SB4, is set to take effect in March. It empowers Texas police to stop and detain people they suspect of entering the country illegally, and Texas judges to issue them de facto deportation orders. Suspected illegal migrants who refuse to return to Mexico could face charges ranging from class A misdemeanors to second-degree felonies.
“Biden’s deliberate inaction has left Texas to fend for itself,” Abbott said at a signing ceremony at the border wall, according to The New York Times.
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The move is expected to be met with swift legal challenges, including from the federal government, which was long the sole arbiter of immigration and border laws. (It is already a crime to cross the border illegally under federal law. The last state legislation to attempt to wrest those powers away, a 2010 measure in Arizona known as the “show me your papers” law, was largely struck down by the Supreme Court.)
In November, 30 former U.S. immigration judges signed a statement agreeing that the proposed legislation was “not lawful” and prophesying it would cause “massive family separation.”
“Immigration is plainly a federal function,” the group wrote. “State legislators cannot enact immigration laws for the same reasons that the United States Congress cannot enact Texas state legislation.”
The bill, forced through the Texas State Legislature last month over the objections of Democratic lawmakers, has also been met with blowback from civil liberties groups, which have argued it will encourage racial profiling. The ACLU has promised to drag Texas to court over the issue.
Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, the president and chief executive of Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, said in response to the bill’s signing that it “knowingly dances on the edge of constitutional cliffs at the expense of vulnerable children and families” and makes “ethnicity a shortcut to suspicion.”
“By criminalizing the very act of seeking refuge,” she continued, “Texas is turning its back on the values of compassion and due process that make our nation the world’s beacon of humanitarian leadership.”
The Mexican government similarly denounced the legislation in a statement last month, saying it “categorically” rejected the measure. Local officials, including sheriffs and county executives, have also expressed concerns that its passage could endanger communities and threaten already overcrowded jails.
The law’s backers, on the other hand, have insisted on its constitutionality and praised its strength. “It’s a landmark bill that allows Texas to protect Texans,” state Rep. David Spiller, the Republican sponsor behind the bill, said during a House debate last month, according to NPR.
Abbott on Monday also signed into law a measure that allows $1.5 billion more in funding for the state to bolster its 1,200-mile border. His government has tested a number of strategies to deal with what he on Monday called the recent “tidal wave” of illegal immigration into the country. Under the banner of its Operation Lone Star, this has included the installation of a floating barrier, the deployment of National Guard troops to the border, and busing migrants to blue states in the north.
