One of the great legal battles of 2024 is beginning to take shape. The Joe Biden Administration has threatened this Thursday to sue Texas for the SB4 law, one of the toughest regulations in the United States against irregular immigration, as it allows authorities to detain and initiate deportation proceedings for any person without papers. The rule was signed by Governor Greg Abbot on December 18, but will go into effect on March 5. The federal government considers that the rule violates the Constitution, so it will resort to the courts if it comes into force.
“We ask Texas to refrain from implementing SB4 because it is unconstitutional and will affect the operations of the federal government,” the Department of Justice said in a letter. The document is signed by prosecutor Brian Boynton, the right-hand man of Attorney General Merrick Garland. The letter, which has been published by the CBS network, requires local authorities to respond before January 3, 2024.
At the center of the dispute between Washington and state authorities is the role that the Texas police will have if the rule is enacted. The text of the law creates new crimes for those who enter the entity illegally and do not have US citizenship. The law, approved by the Republican majority in Congress, puts in place a system that allows local judges to initiate deportation proceedings for immigrants.
The argument of the Department of Justice is that the rule attributes to local authorities functions that the Constitution grants to federal officials, including regulating immigration and controlling international borders. The letter sent cites as background the case of SB170, a law that an ultra-conservative Arizona government approved in 2010 to increase the detention of immigrants. The rule was fought in court by the Obama Administration and over the years received several judicial setbacks that made it little more than a dead letter. The conclusion of the long judicial process, which reached the Supreme Court in 2012, underlined the broad powers of the United States Government in immigration matters.
According to Boynton, the rule interferes with the process that federal authorities follow for immigrants. It also hinders some of the rights that newcomers to the United States have, such as the ability to request asylum to avoid being returned to their countries to be persecuted or tortured.
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The Biden Government recognizes in the letter the discomfort that the new law has aroused among the Government of Mexico. Governor Abbott intends to return to Mexican territory those who cross illegally into the United States, regardless of whether or not they are citizens of that country. “SB4 also inappropriately regulates the movement of people across international borders, undermining United States foreign relations,” the document states.
Governor Abbott has already responded to the threat. “I have never seen such hostility towards legality,” the president wrote on his social networks. “Not only is the Biden Administration refusing to enforce existing immigration laws, it is now seeking to prevent Texas from doing so,” he said. The politician has already resorted to other controversial measures to reduce the number of immigrants in his state. He has opted to send hundreds of people to cities run by Democrats and install a floating wall in the Rio Grande, in addition to fencing the border with barbed wire. The federal government has gone to court to stop some of his strategies.
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