Texas Gov. Greg Abbott Signs 'Fuck The Constitution, Sue Me' Immigration Bill
DOJ certain to challenge, just in time for '24 elections.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott yesterday signed into law a bill making it a crime to be in Texas without legal immigration status, which will in effect put immigration enforcement in the hands of Texas cops and state judges. Seeing as how immigration policy and enforcement is entirely a federal responsibility, the new law pretty much demands a lawsuit from the Justice Department, which is the point: Abbott has been pushing a bullshit constitutional theory that he hopes federal courts will recognize, so states can enact their own policies to deport asylum seekers and anyone else without papers.
Abbott also signed two other bills that will stiffen state penalties for smuggling immigrants, and to provide additional funding for Abbott’s very own border WALL, as well as more police patrols in a housing development that rightwing media claim is full of undocumented immigrants, although we assume they say “swarming” or “infested with,” since dehumanization and extermination is the goal.
Abbott signed the bill at a a construction site near Brownsville where one of his very own WALL segments is being built, and he said that he had no choice but to take immigration matters into his own hands because Joe Biden BAD, and also did you know Abbott has a special copy of the Constitution that lets governors usurp federal authority if they confuse immigration with an act of war?
“Biden’s deliberate inaction has left Texas to fend for itself. The authors of the United States Constitution foresaw a situation when the federal government would be inattentive to states that faced challenges at their borders, and in response they inserted Article 1, Section 10 to the United States Constitution, to take action to defend themselves. And that is exactly what Texas is doing.”
As we’ve discussed previously, Abbott is referring here to a fringe interpretation of the Constitution’s Article 1, Section 10, which clearly refers to military threats, not to a metaphorical “invasion” of undocumented migrants:
No State shall, without the consent of Congress, … engage in War, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent Danger as will not admit of delay.
Yes, Abbott is completely serious about the cockamamie idea that Texas can treat undocumented migrants like an enemy army, which he explained in a letter to President Biden in November 2022, claiming that since Biden had supposedly failed his constitutional duty to protect states against “invasion,” then Abbott had invoked Article 1, “thereby enabling the State of Texas to protect its own territory against invasion by the Mexican drug cartels.”
Yr Dok Zoom is not an attorney, but even I can see a few legal problems with that, starting with the fact that people entering the US without papers is not an “invasion” the way Cuban soldiers parachuting onto a high school f’ball field to take down the Wolverines is an invasion. And hell, ending there too, probably. Abbott may also think the “or in such imminent Danger as will not admit of delay” bit would apply, but — again, from my non-lawyer perspective — get the fuck out of here. Drug cartels, however dangerous they may be, are not a foreign state’s army. Asylum seekers aren’t invaders. Texas is not in imminent danger.
So far courts haven’t actually paid any attention to Abbott’s pet theory, and Crom only knows whether it could get five votes at the US Supreme Court. The Court struck down most of Arizona’s 2010 “your papers please” law in 2012, and has consistently ruled, as recently as this year, that immigration is a federal matter only, but then you never know when the current Court will decide it’s time to blow up another basic principle of constitutional law.
If the feds don’t block the stupid law, it would go into effect in March 2024, and if it does, the Texas Tribune explains,
The law would make it a state crime to cross the Texas-Mexico border between ports of entry. The new crime is a Class B misdemeanor carrying a punishment of up to six months in jail. Repeat offenders could face a second-degree felony with a punishment of two to 20 years in prison.
The law allows a judge to drop the charges if a migrant agrees to return to Mexico. […]
Under the new law, migrants who decline to return immediately to Mexico would serve their sentence, then be transported by police to a port of entry — and they could face a felony charge for refusing to return to Mexico at that point.
The law can be enforced anywhere in Texas, and doesn’t actually require cops to witness someone crossing the border. If cops arrest someone who doesn’t have proof of citizenship or legal immigration status with them, hey, tough. Sort it out later if you can.
There’s another dandy complication, too, as the Texas Tribune points out: Since most people crossing the border illegally these days are from Central America, the Mexican government is under no obligation to let non-Mexican immigrants into Mexico, even if a Texas state trooper brings them to a port of entry. But Greg Abbott isn’t worried about trivial matters of international law:
When asked what Texas would do if Mexico does not accept migrants deported by the state, Abbott said at the news conference: “We’re going to send them right back to Mexico.”
That worked great when it came to making Mexico pay for WALL, so we’re sure this mess will only get uglier.
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[Texas Tribune / Slate / NBC News]
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Just a reminder that ableist jokes making fun of the fact that Greg Abbott uses a wheelchair will be removed. You wouldn't want a blog that mocks Tammy Duckworth for her disabilities, right? Abbott's disability has fuck-all to do with his abhorrent policies, so please don't be assholes, 'kay?
In different areas of the state, this either won't be enforced at all, because it's not possible to enforce, or they'll enforce it on every brown skinned person encountered.
Tell me how this isn't Apartheid? Tell me, now. And just carrying your papers won't even help, depending on what redneck cop wannabe arrests you. A young man was traveling in Texas, several years ago, got stopped and EVEN THOUGH HE HAD HIS BIRTH CERTIFICATE with him, proving he was a citizen, he was detained, anyway, because the cop said that the document could be fake. He was detained for several weeks and lost 26 pounds.
“They didn’t believe me. I kept telling them over and over, and they kept saying my documents were fake, and they were going to deport me,” Galicia said. “…They threatened me with charges – charges about falsifying documents. Felonies. They kept asking how it was possible for me to not know where I was from. I almost signed (to be deported) because I didn’t want to suffer there anymore. “
https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/25/us/us-citizen-detained-texas/index.html