It’s been nearly a year since Texas passed a law empowering states and localities Police arrest undocumented migrants who entered its territory, Republican lawmakers in at least 11 states have tried to apply similar measurescapitalize on the prominence of immigration in the 2024 presidential election.
Fate of the proposals – six proposals were issued or is under consideration, with Louisiana expected to sign its bill into law as early as next week — is still being litigated. In a case before a federal appeals court, Texas is defending its law by arguing that illegal immigration is a form of invasion, allowing the state to expand its power to protect its borders. federal court previously ruled that, from a constitutional perspective, the definition of the term invasion is limited to military attacks.
States have previously tested the limits of their power over immigration, but lawyers and legal scholars say this year’s effort comes with a public relations campaign.
In campaign speeches, political ads and the halls of Congress, many Republicans are echoing Former President Donald J. Trump said the increase in migration at the southern border was an “invasion.” President Biden, under pressure from both the Republican and Democratic Parties to resolve problems at the border, signed an executive order this month to limit asylum, and he may take more action next week.
The measure, expected to be signed by Governor Jeff Landry, a Republican of Louisiana, includes provisions allowing Mr. Landry and his attorney general to establish an agreement with Texas to resolve the issue. border security issue. Mr. Landry was met with Governor Greg AbbottTexas Republican Party, and the Army mobilized National Guard soldiers from Louisiana to the Texas border with Mexico.
Valarie Hodges, the Louisiana senator who authored the law, joined other Republicans in calling Mr. Biden’s recent actions “too little, too late,” said in an interview that state measures like hers are necessary because the Biden administration has failed to enforce immigration laws.
“The federal government is not helping us,” she said. “They did the opposite – they opened the doors and let more people in.”
In swing state Arizona, Republican lawmakers this month introduced a Texas-style measure. ballot in November, after their state’s Democratic governor, Katie Hobbs, vetoed similar legislation. And in Michigan, another battleground where immigration has energized Mr. Trump’s base, Republican state lawmakers from the far-right Freedom Caucus have introduced another measure.
James DeSana, a state representative in Michigan, said he and the bill’s other authors decided to file the bill after visits to Del Rio and Eagle Pass, Texas, even though they believed it would most likely be stalled. stagnation in the Democratic-controlled state Legislature.
Mr. DeSana, a Republican who campaigned against “sanctuary” cities when he won the seat — and flipped it from Democratic control — in 2022, emphasized that he was not against legal immigration or create more temporary legal pathways for workers to enter the country. But he was adamant that the situation on the southern border had become an invasion.
“A lot of people live in the inner city,” he said in an interview. “We don’t have enough housing. Our police resources are under strain. Crime is being committed.”
Democrats, immigrant rights groups and some legal scholars say the proposals could devastate their states’ economies, lead to racial and ethnic discrimination, and time raised dangerous visions of undocumented immigrants as invaders and hostile aliens. Arizona’s ballot measure has revived memories of police harassment and anti-immigrant sentiment among young Latinos and immigrant rights activists, who have succeeded in pushing reverse that behavior. previously restrictive immigration laws.
On the floor of the Louisiana House of Representatives in April, state Sen. Royce Duplessis, a Democrat from New Orleans, called on lawmakers in his state and across the country to reject language promoting photos of undocumented immigrants because “even though they came from outer space to take us away.” all out of our house.”
In an interview, he said states with fewer resources are unlikely to do better than the federal government in dealing with immigration, a complex issue that both parties have failed to address. for several years. “It is pushing an ideological agenda rather than addressing real public safety issues,” he said.
Texas has been experimenting with raising the limits of its power on hot-button issues beyond immigration, including abortion and Limit gender changeBut its campaign has attracted the most attention with immigration.
Mr. Abbott’s practice of transporting migrants to blue-collar cities like New York and Chicago initially drew condemnation from immigrant rights groups and progressives, who said he was treating immigrant. as political pawns – and then there are concerns, incl among Democratsthat local and state governments are ill-equipped to handle record levels of migration under the Biden administration.
Supporters of state measures argue that a 1996 federal law aimed at curbing illegal immigration enhanced the ability of states to help enforce immigration laws, even as the power to regulate Immigration and naturalization belong to Congress. But efforts to expand law enforcement’s power to enforce immigration laws in the decades since have largely been limited by the courts. Federal judge Important aspects are blocked Immigration laws passed in Arizona in 2010 and in South Carolina in 2011 include provisions requiring law enforcement officers to check the immigration status of certain people at routine stops and Immigrants must bring federal registration documents.
In committee hearings and more recent debates, Republicans have insisted that their description of the invasion at the Southern border is accurate, pointing to the flow of fentanyl across the border and other cases of human trafficking, murder and sexual assault committed by undocumented immigrants.
According to the Drug Enforcement Administration, the majority of fentanyl in the United States is smuggled through legal ports of entry, typically by citizens drive across the border, and even though the immigrant population in the country has been growing for decades, crime over the same period has increased. reduce.
In the Texas case before a federal appeals court, Ilya Somin, a professor at the Antonin Scalia School of Law at George Mason University in Virginia, argued in an amicus brief on behalf of himself and Cato Institutelibertarian think tank, expanding the definition of invasion to include illegal immigration would set a dangerous precedent, allowing nations to declare war on foreign powers at any time. they want and result in the detention of more people without due process, regardless of nationality.
“It goes against the original text and meaning of the Constitution” and will have serious implications, Mr. Somin said in an interview.
Jennifer M. Chacón, a professor at Stanford Law School who studies immigration and constitutional law, said the rhetoric in the Texas lawsuit raises concerns about immigrant invasions that have appeared throughout the nation’s history, creating harmful racial and ethnic bigotry and intolerance. clan.
“An invasion envisions an armed group acting cohesively to commit an act of war and deserving of a response. That’s not the case,” she said, referring to the increase in immigration worldwide. “This is a multinational group of men, women and children who are on the run for a variety of reasons.”
