Justice threatens to sue Texas over migrant arrest law

The Justice Department threatened Thursday to sue Texas if it enforces a sweeping new law that would allow state and local police to arrest migrants entering the United States from Mexico without authorization, in what would be the first major legal showdown mean about federal immigration enforcement.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed the measure, known as Senate Bill 4, this month in his most direct challenge yet to the Biden administration’s handling of immigration. Immigrant rights groups and Latin American organizations had opposed the legislation, arguing it would violate the U.S. Constitution and encourage racial profiling.

In a letter obtained by The New York Times, Brian M. Boynton, an assistant attorney general at the DOJ, gave Mr. Abbott until next Wednesday to withdraw his intention to repeal the law, which takes effect in early March to enforce. Otherwise, he wrote, “the Justice Department intends to file suit to enforce the supremacy of federal law and enforce SB 4.”

In the letter, addressed to Mr. Abbott, a third-term Republican, and Ken Paxton, the attorney general, Mr. Boynton cited a 2012 U.S. Supreme Court case, Arizona v. United States, in which the court narrowly decided in favor of the federal government’s power to determine immigration policy.

“SB 4 therefore encroaches on a field occupied and anticipated by the federal government,” he wrote in the letter, which was first reported by The Houston Chronicle. “Indeed, the Supreme Court has affirmed that ‘the removal process’ ‘must be left to the discretion of the federal government.’”

The legal threat came a day after Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken and other top U.S. officials met with Mexican President Manuel López Obrador to discuss ways to slow illegal border crossings, which have hit U.S. border towns and cities across the country. Democratic-led cities like New York have overwhelmed. , Chicago and Denver.

In recent weeks, the large number of migrants has also forced border officials to temporarily close several railroad crossings in Texas and close the port of entry in Lukeville, Arizona, to reroute staff and respond to hotspots.

The DOJ threat is one of many challenges to Texas law. This month, El Paso County and two immigrant rights groups, represented by the American Civil Liberties Union and the Texas Civil Rights Project, filed a lawsuit in an effort to stop the measure, echoing the Justice Department’s argument that immigration laws can only are enforced. by federal agents.

That lawsuit, filed in federal court in Austin, names as defendants the Texas Department of Public Safety, whose agents would be charged with arresting migrants, and El Paso County District Attorney Bill Hicks, whose office is filing state charges would submit.

Mr. Abbott has said he anticipated the legal challenges and has made clear he plans to defend the law in the Supreme Court. On Thursday, a spokeswoman, Renae Eze, said government officials did not plan to follow the Justice Department’s directive.

“President Biden’s deliberate and dangerous inaction at our southern border has left Texas to fend for itself,” she said in a statement.

Since 2021, Mr. Abbott has been testing the legal limits of what a state can do to enforce immigration law as part of a multibillion-dollar strategy known as Operation Lone Star, which includes the use of concertina wire and buoys along the banks of the border . the Rio Grande.

He has also defended the need to arrest unauthorized migrants in response to what he has called President Biden’s inability to control the southern border, where as many as 10,000 crossings have been recorded in a single day.

“In his absence, Texas has the constitutional authority to secure our border through historic laws like SB 4,” Mr. Abbott has said.

In his letter Thursday, Mr. Boynton expressed his intention to argue the merits of the state’s objections before the case reached the courtroom.

“To the extent you believe there are facts or laws supporting the validity of SB 4, we urge you to immediately bring them to our attention,” he wrote.