Inspired by Texas, Republicans in other states are looking at immigration laws
On Tuesday, the same day Texas was briefly allowed to enforce a new law giving police officers the power to arrest unauthorized migrants, Iowa lawmakers passed a law making it a crime to enter their state after being deported or denied entry into the United States. .
At least seven states, all controlled by Republicans, hope to follow suit or have already considered bills that have not passed.
The flood of laws and proposals aimed at cracking down on undocumented immigrants entering the country is part of the extraordinary mix of immigration, lawsuits and politics that is creating legal gridlock in the courts and confusion at the border.
However, the fate of all these bills will most likely depend on the outcome of the Texas case, according to legal analysts and groups involved in migration issues. If Texas’ law is upheld, observers expect more bills from Republican states modeled on what Texas did.
Kansas and Oklahoma are among the states that have introduced legislation this year regarding illegal entry into the United States, following the law in Texas.
Louisiana became the latest on Monday. And Missouri has two bills, including An sponsored by State Senator Bill Eigel, who is one of the leading candidates for governor this year.
Mr. Eigel, who represents a St. Louis suburb, described the surge at the border as an “invasion” and blamed “the failure of our federal government under President Joe Biden to deal with it” during a committee hearing last week to go’.
It’s too early to tell whether these bills will progress as far as Iowa’s. Bills in West Virginia and Mississippi have already failed. And a similar bill passed by Arizona’s Republican-controlled Legislature was vetoed by Gov. Katie Hobbs, a Democrat.
But none of the other states eyeing immigration laws like Texas’s have Democratic governors.
Still, supporters and opponents of the Texas law said they wouldn’t be surprised if lawmakers in other states try to introduce similar measures as most legislative sessions begin to wind down in the coming months.
“The bigger picture is that given the scope of illegal immigration and the impact it has on states and local communities, we are likely to see more efforts on the part of these jurisdictions to try to discourage people from settling there illegally,” said Ira Mehlman, spokesperson for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which supports reducing both legal and undocumented immigration.
Spencer Amdur, a senior staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union’s Immigrants’ Rights Project, said immigrant advocates are considering legal challenges to the Iowa legislation, which Gov. Kim Reynolds has pledged to sign.
Among other objections, Mr. Amdur argued that the regulation of entry and removal was exclusively federal. He also said the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that states cannot unilaterally enforce immigration rules.
“We think the Iowa law is illegal for the same reasons we think the Texas law is illegal,” he said.
Mr Amdur noted that while most bills to date contain similar wording, Oklahoma was something elsepartly because of one phrase: ‘unlawfully present’.
Under Oklahoma’s proposal, anyone who was arrested and charged with a crime and then determined to be “unlawfully present” in the country would be guilty of a felony punishable by a minimum of 10 years in prison.
Jacob Hamburger, a visiting law professor at Cornell, said the proposed laws risk leading to racial profiling. He also said that if the courts uphold Texas law — basically that “Texas can have its own deportation policy” — states led by Democratic governors who have tried to strengthen immigrant protections could be emboldened to push for more lenient labor licensing and other laws. policy.
But for now, he said, “aspects of Texas’ overall strategy — such as this public campaign to transport migrants to cities — may have weakened Democrats’ commitment to immigrants.”