DOJ sues Texas over border laws
AUSTIN, Texas — The Justice Department on Wednesday sued Texas over a new law that would allow police to arrest migrants who enter the US illegally, taking Republican Gov. Greg Abbott to court again over his escalating response to border crossers arriving from Mexico.
The lawsuit draws Texas into another clash over immigration at a time when New York and Chicago are pushing back on buses and planes carrying migrants sent by Abbott to Democrat-led cities nationwide. Texas is also fighting separate court battles to keep razor wire on the border and a floating barrier in the Rio Grande.
But a law Abbott signed last month poses a broader and bigger challenge to the US government’s authority over immigration. In addition to allowing police anywhere in Texas to arrest migrants on charges of illegal entry, the law — known as Senate Bill 4 — also gives judges the authority to order migrants to leave the country.
“Texas cannot run its own immigration system,” the Justice Department states in the lawsuit. “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 US foreign relations.”
The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Austin, asks a court to declare the Texas law unconstitutional, alleging that it interferes with the federal government’s right to regulate foreign commerce and prohibits the state from enforcing it.
The law is set to take effect in March.
Civil rights organizations and officials in El Paso County, Texas, filed a lawsuit last month that similarly described the new law as unconstitutional overreach.
The Justice Department sent Abbott a letter last week
threatening legal action unless Texas reversed course. In response, Abbott posted on X that the Biden administration “not only refuses to enforce current US immigration laws, they now want to stop Texas from enforcing laws against illegal immigration.”
On Wednesday, House Speaker Mike Johnson and about 60 fellow Republicans visited the Texas border city of Eagle Pass, which has been the center of Abbott’s $10 billion border initiative known as Operation Lone Star. Johnson suggested he could use a looming government funding deadline as further leverage for hard-line border policies.
President Joe Biden has expressed willingness to make policy compromises because the number of migrants crossing the border is an increasing challenge for his 2024 reelection campaign. Johnson praised Abbott, who was not in Eagle Pass, and slammed the lawsuits that seek to undo Texas’ aggressive border measures.
“It’s absolute insanity,” Johnson said.
Illegal crossings along the southern US border topped 10,000 on several days in December, a number that US Customs and Border Patrol Commissioner Troy Miller called “unprecedented.”