On Thursday, a federal judge decided to block a newly passed Texas law which would allow local Texas police to arrest any migrants entering the state illegally.
In a 114-page decision, U.S. District Court Judge David Alan Ezra said the SB4 law “threatens the fundamental notion that the United States must regulate immigration with one voice.” The case will proceed through the court system but his ruling prevented the law from taking place noting Texas was “unlikely to succeed on the merits” and described the effects on the federal government as “suffering grave irreparable harm” if the law was enacted.
“If allowed to proceed, SB 4 could open the door to each state passing its own version of immigration laws,” the judge wrote. “The effect would moot the uniform regulation of immigration throughout the country and force the federal government to navigate a patchwork of inconsistent regulations.”
In December, Texas Governor Greg Abbot signed the bill into law as an attempt to stop the surge of illegal migrants entering his state and draining all the resources from state and local governments.
“The Court is sympathetic to Texas’s concerns at the border, but to say that the Biden Administration has ‘abandoned’ the field of immigration is to take hyperbolic criticism literally,” the judge wrote. “Contrary to Texas’s position, the record is replete with examples and evidence of the federal government carrying out its immigration duties.”
Biden’s Department of Justice sued Texas a month ago to prevent the law from taking place citing federal law having control over the borders under the Constitution. When will the Biden administration get the hint that the southern border states are in crisis mode?