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Texas Immigration Law (SB-4) Goes Into Effect Today

SkyChief

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Texas Law SB-4 makes it a state crime to cross the Texas-Mexico border between ports of entry. If a police officer has probable cause to believe a person illegally crossed the Rio Grande, that person could be charged with a Class B misdemeanor.

Texas SB-4 allows police to question and arrest anyone they believe entered Texas through Mexico illegally and is currently without legal immigration status. Last December, Governor Abbott signed SB 4 into law, which was supposed to take effect March 5th, however, the U.S. Supreme Court blocked SB-4 arguing that illegal crossings are the jurisdiction of Federal agents. The S.C. block expired yesterday, so as of today, SB-4 is in effect.

Most Texan voters are concerned that the sheer volume of illegals coming into the U.S. via the Texas border are too much for Federal border control agents, and this is why SB-4 was passed.

source: https://www.texastribune.org/2024/03/18/texas-sb-4-immigration-arrest-law/

IMO SB-4 should stand because the Federal agents don't have the resources in order to control the unprecedented volume of illegal crossings into the state. A reasonable compromise would be to include a 'sunset' provision into the Law - meaning that at some date it would expire (typically after 2 years), and it would then go back on the ballot.

(this thread is not in the Immigration sub-forum because it is not an immigration issue. The topic is about separation of powers )
 
Texas currently has about 140,000 people in jail or prison.

Unless their prisons are 90% empty, they aren't going to have space to hold people if they enforce SB-4 on even 5% of the people who violate it.
 
Unconstitutional.
Article 1, Section 8, Clause 4 and Article 6, Clause 2
 
samiam5211 said:
Texas currently has about 140,000 people in jail or prison.

Unless their prisons are 90% empty, they aren't going to have space to hold people if they enforce SB-4 on even 5% of the people who violate it.
Click to expand...

It's just theater for the low foreheads.
 
I thought the SC halted Texas’ new law. Sorry cannot link — on cellphone
 
The correct fix would be for the Feds who are overwhelmed to delegate to TX and other states the power to arrest and detain illegals.

That won't happen because Wide Open Biden loves him the flood of illegals coming from China and other countries that seek our downfall.
 
Earlier today, the Supreme Court allows Texas to begin enforcing law that lets police arrest migrants at border.

This decision does not declare that SB-4 is constitutional, rather it punts the ball to the appellate Courts, which could decide to block it again, in which case it would then goes back to the Supreme Court, then back to the Appellate Court for the block, , , etc, etc., etc.

Mexico is not required to accept deportations of anyone except Mexican citizens, so it is unclear how non-Mexican migrants would be handled.

DHS was clear that they would not assist Texas in implementation or enforcement of SB-4.

S.C. Justices Ketanji Brown Jackson, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor expressed their expected dissent:

“The [Supreme] Court gives a green light to a law that will upend the longstanding federal-state balance of power and sow chaos,” Sotomayor wrote in her dissent.

source: https://apnews.com/article/supreme-court-migrant-arrests-texas-13ffaed316d16f42e928f6958f0658f2
 
Not exactly what happened.. What they said was the 5th circuit needs to decide the stay pending appeal and they need to get off their asses and get it done..


The time may come, in this case or another, when this Court is forced to conclude that an administrative stay has effectively become a stay pending appeal and review it accordingly. But at this juncture in this case, that conclusion would be premature. The applicants’ opposition to the administrative stay included a request that any such stay itself be stayed for seven days pending an application to thisCourt, and the Fifth Circuit granted that request in its order. It is surprising that both the parties and the panel contemplated from the start that this Court might review an administrative stay. Before this Court intervenes on the emergency docket, the Fifth Circuit should be the first mover: It should apply the Nken factors and decide the motion for a stay pending appeal. It can presumably do so promptly. Texas’s motion for a stay pending appeal was fully briefed in the Fifth Circuit by March 5, almost two weeks ago. Merits briefing on Texas’s challenge to the District Court’s injunction of S. B. 4 is currently underway. If a decision does not issue soon, the applicants may return to this Court.


https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/24487693/23a814-and-23a815-march-19.pdf

The 5th circuit added a hearing for tomorrow at 10am a few hours later..

 
mrjurrs said:
Unconstitutional.
Article 1, Section 8, Clause 4 and Article 6, Clause 2
Click to expand...
Let's start where you ended, at A6C2: "This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding."

This is commonly known as the Supremacy Clause. When in conflict, federal law supersedes state law ("This Constitution ... shall be the supreme Law of the Land ... any Thing in the ... Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding"). But what happens when the laws are not in conflict? What if Texas lifted 8 USC 1325(a) (the unlawful entry statute) verbatim and placed it in the Texas criminal code? This is not a law "to the Contrary." It is a state law exactly in sync with federal law. What the argument really seems to be is not one in favor of the supremacy of federal law, but instead the supremacy of a federal policy to effectively ignore federal law.

Moving on, we turn now to your A1S8C4 argument: "To establish a uniform Rule of Naturalization ... throughout the United States." Since it cannot be argued that a state law is contrary to the federal statute it mirrors, it must now be the sole argument that any enforcement action based on an immigration status must be the sole purview of the federal government because "establish[ing] a uniform Rule of Naturalization" is mentioned as a federal power in A1S8. Two issues arise from this point of view.

First, the power mentioned in A1S8 is the power to establish the immigration laws of the United States. That power has been exercised. Enforcement of those laws is not mentioned, nor is punishing those who violate them. This seems a bit hyper-technical, though, and is probably a weak argument.

Second, we can move two clauses down and see the Congress is empowered to: "provide for the Punishment of counterfeiting the Securities and current Coin of the United States." If it's unconstitutional for states to enact immigration-related criminal statutes that mirror federal ones, it surely must also be true that state statutes such as New York's Penal L § 170.15, Oregon's ORS 165.013, and Minnesota's MN Rev St. 609.632 (Subd. 1), all of which punish counterfeiting of currency, are also unconstitutional. In fact, tying this back to the first point, it's even more surely unconstitutional than a copy/paste of immigration statutes because this clause explicitly references the punishment of counterfeiting, not just establishing laws to prohibit it. Likewise, every one of the dozen states I searched had departments of weights and measures, the fixing of which is another power reserved to the Congress by A1S8C5. If the enforcement of the uniform rules of naturalization are reserved exclusively to the Congress, why are such state departments permitted under the same logic?

It's not as simple as you claim.
 
It is absolutely as simple as I claim. It is not the same law.

If it was, why did Mexico inform the US that they would not be accepting any deportations from the state of TX?

Tell you what, I'll adjust my interpretation on the immigration law based on your determination when you agree that "...to keep and bear arms..." doesn't include purchasing them.
 
mrjurrs said:
It is absolutely as simple as I claim. It is not the same law.
Click to expand...
I've looked it over. It pretty much is. It's not verbatim, but I see nothing in there that criminalized otherwise lawful behavior. It creates Section 38.20 of the Texas penal code. Under that revision, part (a) is a definition that imports definitions directly from the US Code. Parts (b)(1) - (b)(3) are almost word-for-word transcriptions of 8 USC 1325(a). Part (c) outlines penalties for violating the statute, which are no more severe than those for violating the equivalent parts of 8 USC 1325. It then goes on to provide as an affirmative defense to prosecution a later granting of lawful presence by the federal government (which is more lenient than the US Code, which contains no such provision that retroactively *poofs* an unlawful act into a lawful one).

What specific provision of the Texas statute is contrary to federal law?

mrjurrs said:
If it was, why did Mexico inform the US that they would not be accepting any deportations from the state of TX?
Click to expand...
Surprisingly, Mexico is not bound by the Constitution of the United States of America and can do whatever it wants. What Mexico does has no bearing on what the Constitution says.

mrjurrs said:
Tell you what, I'll adjust my interpretation on the immigration law based on your determination when you agree that "...to keep and bear arms..." doesn't include purchasing them.
Click to expand...
Different clauses, different locations within the document, different contexts, one delegates power to the government, one secures a right for the people... I could go on as to why equating the two things is comparing apples to dump trucks, but I think the point is clear enough. Not that I think you'll take that difference to heart...
 
The part where TX says they will be deporting people to Mexico.

What Mexico is doing has zero to do with American law, it is directly tied to their sovereignty.

Fail. Both are amending the meaning of the Constitution without amending the Constitution.
 
mrjurrs said:
The part where TX says they will be deporting people to Mexico.
Click to expand...
I just reviewed the statute again, and I can't find anything that says Texas will be deporting anyone. Perhaps you could quote that bit?

mrjurrs said:
What Mexico is doing has zero to do with American law, it is directly tied to their sovereignty.
Click to expand...
Yup, so it has nothing to do with whether or not a law passed by Texas is constitutional.

mrjurrs said:
Fail. Both are amending the meaning of the Constitution without amending the Constitution.
Click to expand...
Nah. You have failed to show how the Texas law is contrary to federal law, and you have yet to explain how states can have enforcement arms dealing with weights and measures or punish currency counterfeiting, yet cannot pass laws that mirror federal ones when it comes to immigration.
 
I'm going to suggest that you are not looking at the actual bill.
"Let me say this once and for all, we will not accept deportations from the Texan government," Lopez Obrador said on Wednesday at his daily news conference."

Mexico's sovereignty related to its dealings with other nations. They choose not to accept people from TX because they already have an agreement with the US and TX is not a part of it.

It's easy to explain. The federal government chose to allow it.
 
This was blocked by an appeals court.


Texas GOP is a criminal organization and has been for some time.
 
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