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20-12-2023
HOUSTON: Texas Governor Greg Abbott traveled to the Rio Grande Valley on Monday to sign into law three bills that pour more money into his three-year effort to deter illegal immigration at the Texas-Mexico border and give Texas law enforcement authority to arrest undocumented immigrants anywhere in the state.
Senate Bill 3 earmarks $1.54 billion in state money to continue construction of barriers along the 1,200-mile border, and allows the state to spend up to $40 million for state troopers to patrol Colony Ridge, a housing development near Houston that far-right publications claim is a magnet for undocumented immigrants.
The money would be added to at least $1.5 billion in contracts the state has issued since September 2021 to build about 40 miles of border barrier. As of August, Texas had erected 16 miles of steel bollard barriers in Starr, Cameron, Val Verde and Webb counties.
Senate Bill 4 creates a state crime for illegally crossing the border from Mexico, a new law that is likely to force a legal showdown with the federal government.
Another Senate Bill 4 this one passed by lawmakers during the third special session earlier this year would increase the minimum sentence from two years to 10 years for smuggling immigrants or operating a stash house.
The laws funding the border barrier and making crossing illegally a state crime go into effect in early March. The human smuggling law goes into effect in early February.
Abbott, who was in Brownsville on Monday to sign the bills, said Texas needs to defend itself from drug cartels, blaming the Democratic President Joe Biden administration’s immigration policies.
“Biden’s deliberate inaction has left Texas to fend for itself,” Abbott said.
Immigrant rights organizations, Democrats and former immigration judges said the SB 4 that makes illegally crossing the border a state crime is unconstitutional because immigration enforcement is a federal responsibility.
Federal courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court, have ruled that immigration laws can only be enforced by the federal government. But some Texas Republicans have said they hope the new law will push the issue back before a US Supreme Court that is more conservative since three appointees of former President Donald Trump joined it.
The law would make it a state crime to cross the Texas-Mexico border between ports of entry. The new crime is a Class B misdemeanor carrying a punishment of up to six months in jail. Repeat offenders could face a second-degree felony with a punishment of two to 20 years in prison.
The law allows a judge to drop the charges if a migrant agrees to return to Mexico. (Int’l News Desk)
