CV NEWS FEED // The Biden administration’s Department of Justice (DOJ) announced it is suing Texas over a recently-signed law that will make illegal immigration a state crime.
“Texas cannot run its own immigration system,” the administration’s lawsuit states:
Its efforts, through SB 4, intrude on the federal government’s exclusive authority to regulate the entry and removal of noncitizens, frustrate the United States’ immigration operations and proceedings, and interfere with U.S. foreign relations.
Associate Attorney General Vanita Gupta called the Texas law “clearly unconstitutional” in a Wednesday DOJ press release. “Under the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution and longstanding Supreme Court precedent, states cannot adopt immigration laws that interfere with the framework enacted by Congress,” he stated.
Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Brian Boynton added: “We have brought this action to ensure that Texas adheres to the framework adopted by Congress and the Constitution for regulation of immigration.”
Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott reacted to the lawsuit on X (formerly Twitter) Wednesday night.
“Biden sued me today because I signed a law making it illegal for an illegal immigrant to enter or attempt to enter Texas directly from a foreign nation,” he wrote. “I like my chances. Texas is the only government in America trying to stop illegal immigration.”
Abbott signed SB 4 on December 18. The law would allow the police to arrest migrants who cross the border illegally and for judges to order migrants removed to Mexico. SB 4 is scheduled to go into effect in March.
Those “arrested under the law will be able to choose whether to follow a judge’s orders to leave the country or be prosecuted and face either jail or a fine up to $2,000,” reported The New York Post. “Repeat offenders will then be charged with a felony.”
As CatholicVote reported at the time: “In addition, it provides over $1.5 billion in earmarks to construction of Texas’ border wall as well as $40 million for law enforcement to protect areas where high numbers of illegal immigrants are thought to live.”
>> ABBOTT SIGNS TEXAS BILL MAKING ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION A CRIME <<
“SB 4 was created to address the endless stream of illegal immigration facilitated by the Biden administration,” noted Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton on X. “I am prepared to fight the Biden Administration whose immigration disaster is leading our country to ruin. Texas has the sovereign right to protect our state.”
On Monday FOX News indicated that during December, “more than 302,000 migrants were documented attempting to cross the U.S. southern border.” FOX cited data from the Customs and Border Protection (CBP).
“It is the highest total for a single month ever recorded,” FOX added. “It is also the first time migrant encounters have exceeded 300,000.”
FOX stressed that the figure was “a level thought unimaginable just years ago.”
As CatholicVote previously reported:
In January 2021, the month President Joe Biden took office, only 78,414 encounters were recorded. Just six months later, the total was 213,593 – almost three times higher.
CBP is an agency of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
