by Jason Hopkins
The Biden administration is currently waging a legal campaign against Republican-led states, arguing that their laws that effectively restrict illegal immigration are unconstitutional.
Department of Justice so far filed lawsuits against three different states for passing laws that broadly empower police to enforce immigration laws. But leaders in these states, amid an unprecedented border crisis, say they have no choice but to take on the issue themselves because the Biden administration won’t do it and other Republican states may soon follow suit.
Texas, Iowa and Oklahoma have signed similar bills in recent months that make being an illegal immigrant a state crime. Texas Senate Bill 4, Iowa Senate File 2340, and Oklahoma House Bill 4156 strengthen its law enforcement bodies arrest illegal immigrants and impose various penalties for staying in the country illegally.
“As this administration abandons its enforcement duties, states are trying to protect themselves,” Matt Crapo, senior staff attorney at the Law Institute for Immigration Reform, explained to the Daily Caller News Foundation. “They’re trying to do it by mimicking federal law, enforcing the same type of regulations if this administration were enforcing the law.”
However, the Biden administration argues that the regulations are unconstitutional because they violate the federal government’s exclusive authority to enforce immigration laws.
Whether these states will be able to enforce their laws will likely depend on the Supreme Court. The law passed in Texas, the first of three to take this approach, is likely to return to the highest court in the land.
The Law Institute for Immigration Reform, a legal organization supporting stronger enforcement of immigration laws, filed the request amicus brief in the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in support of Texas SB4. Crapo said his organization plans to file similar briefs in support of the Iowa and Oklahoma bills when those states file challenges to preliminary injunctions issued by federal courts.
In its Texas briefing, IRLI argued that while SB4 “compares” similar federal immigration offenses, the law does not interfere with the federal government’s authority to decide which classes of aliens are admissible and which are removed.
However, not all legal experts agree that Texas law is constitutional.
“SB4 is cruel, inhumane and clearly unconstitutional,” said Kate Melloy Goettel, senior director of legal affairs at the American Immigration Council. March Statement. “Taken together, these bills could result in serious civil rights violations, leading to widespread arrests and deportations by state entities lacking crucial federal protections.”
“We hope that SB4 will ultimately be blocked in court; otherwise it will set a disastrous precedent,” Goettel continued.
Immigration experts aren’t sure what the Supreme Court’s final ruling will be.
“It’s kind of an open question whether the Supreme Court will allow Texas to make illegal entry into Texas a crime,” Art Arthur of the Center for Immigration Studies told DCNF, noting that this case is fundamentally different from the lawsuit against the 2010 Arizona law. , which criminalized the status of illegal immigration, but it was largely knocked down. “Texas’ argument is, ‘Look, the federal government is not completely addressing this crime because trespassing is a substantive state crime and is essentially a trespassing crime.’”
Arthur noted that Texas legislation is fundamentally different from Iowa and Oklahoma, which means potentially very different outcomes in court cases. Unlike Oklahoma and Iowa, Texas borders Mexico and has greater trespass enforcement powers.
“The Supreme Court’s decision on SB4 will give us a great sense of the viability of these other laws, but these other laws can be distinguished from SB4,” he said. “For this reason, if states are serious about this issue, they will have to take the matter to the Supreme Court.”
Similar to what supporters of the legislation have argued, Arthur said portions of these state laws are not “political stunts” but a cry for facilitate and claims that the Biden administration has abandoned immigration enforcement.
Federal immigration data shows that illegal immigration has reached historic levels.
This fiscal year, Border Patrol agents recorded more than 1,171,000 encounters with illegal immigrants, According to the latest data from Customs and Border Protection. More than six million such meetings have taken place in the White House since the beginning of President Joe Biden’s term.
The massive influx of illegal immigrants was followed by high-profile crimes such as killing nursing student from Georgia allegedly at the hands of an illegal immigrant from Venezuela and attempted infringement Quantico Naval Base in Virginia allegedly by two Jordanian citizens living in the country illegally. A report by a New Jersey lawmaker shows that his state shoots out over $7 billion a year to cover the costs of illegal immigrants.
For these reasons, Republican state leaders say they have no choice but to address the crisis on their own — even as the Biden administration threatens to sue them.
“The Biden administration is refusing to do their job, so we have to do this,” Louisiana State Senator Valarie Hodges told DCNF. Hodges is sponsoring a bill that, if passed, would also make illegal immigration a state crime.
Its legislation, Senate Bill 388, makes illegal entry punishable by up to one year in prison and a $4,000 fine for a first offense and up to two years in prison and a $10,000 fine for a second offense. The bill has already passed both houses of the state Legislature and requires formal approval from the state Senate before it reaches the governor’s desk.
Like state governors and attorneys general already sued by the Justice Department, the state senator seemed unfazed by the prospect of a legal challenge.
“When the federal government doesn’t do its job, what course do we take?” Hodges asked. “If we don’t do something, we will fail. I believe we are within our constitutional limits to do so.”
“Maybe we should sue them for dereliction of duty,” she added.
The Department of Justice did not respond to DCNF’s request for comment.
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Jason Hopkins is a reporter at the Daily Caller News Foundation.
