Democrats and Mexican officials have responded to Texas' new law with fear-mongering and threats
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President Biden’s border crisis shows no signs of abating as the state of Texas, overwhelmed with would-be migrants, fortifies its defenses with new laws.
Chief among the new measures is Senate Bill 4, expected to be signed into law in days by Republican Gov. Greg Abbott after its passage in Texas’ fourth special session.
SB4 represents a significant legislative effort to address illegal immigration by empowering state and local authorities to arrest and order to return to Mexico would-be migrants who have crossed or are crossing into Texas from Mexico in areas other than an official border crossing.
President Biden’s border crisis shows no signs of abating as Texas, overwhelmed with would-be migrants, fortifies its defenses. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
This law is a response to what Texas lawmakers perceive as a severe border crisis that continues to worsen.
The law also requires state judges to order would-be migrants who have been convicted of illegally crossing into Texas under this new state law to return to Mexico after they have completed their sentence. Penalties range from misdemeanors to felonies based on compliance and additional crimes.
But some Texas Democrats are already engaging in theatrics over the bill – and troublingly, working with Mexican government authorities to thwart it. State Rep. Victoria Neave Criado, a Democrat from Dallas, told the media that she carries her passport everywhere, in case police question her citizenship.
San Antonio’s Democratic congressman, Joaquin Castro, joined in the charade by claiming, "You’re going to have a lot of American citizens who are going to have their citizenship contested and challenged, some of those people dragged down to the police stations if they can’t provide that documentation right away. So that’s what you’re going to start seeing on the street."
This is fear-mongering of the first order, designed to bolster legal opposition to the law by claiming its similarities to Arizona’s SB1070, passed in 2010 and partially struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court two years later in a 5 to 3 ruling.
Castro said he’ll ask the Biden administration to sue Texas on the grounds that immigration law is solely a federal responsibility, with the states having no power in this arena.
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Not content to simply contest the law in the legislature or the courts, Democrats have admitted to working with Mexican foreign ministry officials across Texas in an effort to sidestep the new legislation.
Comparing Texas’ SB4 and Arizona’s SB1070
But there are important differences between the Arizona law passed 13 years ago and Texas’ pending law.
SB1070 was then the broadest and strictest anti-illegal immigration law in the U.S. It required law enforcement officers to determine an individual’s immigration status during lawful stops when there was reasonable suspicion of illegal immigration status.
This law faced immediate legal challenges, leading to a Supreme Court ruling that upheld some provisions while striking down others as violations of the supremacy clause of the U.S. Constitution.
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The key difference between SB4 and SB1070 lies in their scope and focus. While SB1070 encompassed a broader range of immigration-related activities and faced significant legal challenges, SB4 focuses narrowly on the arrest and removal of illegal aliens where law enforcement has probable cause to believe a person entered the state illegally.
Opposition from Texas Democrats
Even so, a faction of Texas Democrats, including officials from Harris, Travis and El Paso Counties, have raised objections to SB4. They argue that the law is unconstitutional, citing the federal government's exclusive jurisdiction over immigration law.
Their concerns extend to the potential harm SB4 could inflict on the relationship between the United States and Mexico. They assert that the law could lead to civil rights violations and goes against the Supreme Court ruling in Arizona v. U.S., which established that immigration enforcement is a federal responsibility.
Mexican Government’s Stance
The Mexican government has even weighed into Texas’ legislation, categorically rejecting SB4. Mexico City emphasizes that the bill violates the human rights of Mexican immigrants in Texas.
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Mexico also cited the importance of due process and Mexico’s right to establish its own immigration policies. This stance is significant, considering that a substantial portion of immigrants at the Texas-Mexico border are not Mexican citizens but come from various regions, including Central and South America, Asia, and Eastern Europe.
Simply put, the Mexican government, and the criminal human and drug trafficking cartels whose interests they represent, wants the right to profit off the millions of people they help push across the border into the U.S. without any resistance from Texas – or the Biden administration.
The Mexican government is even ramping up its meddling in American elections to shape the policies it wants.
After Mexican officials attacked Texas Gov. Abbott, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, Rep. Dan Crenshaw, R-Texas, Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., and others, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador announced this March that he would launch an "information campaign" to dissuade Mexican Americans, and all Hispanics in the U.S., from voting for Republicans.
By opposing SB4 in league with the Mexican government, some Texas Democrats find themselves in an open alliance with the criminal cartel-government amalgam that terrorizes Mexico, kills Americans with fentanyl poisoning, and traffics millions of people into the U.S. every year.
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Chuck DeVore is a vice president with the Texas Public Policy Foundation, was elected to the California legislature, is a retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel, and the author of the new book, "Crisis of the House Never United."
