And Governor Greg Abbott acknowledged how “extreme” the new bill is.
Republican Governor Greg Abbott has signed into law one of the most restrictive immigration bills in American history: The bill, known as Senate Bill 4 (SB 4), will make unauthorized border crossings a state crime, among other consequential measures. Abbott’s state-enforced law is a rebuke to immigration law precedent, which has long existed under the federal purview — and now, it seems all but guaranteed to cause a lengthy and contentious legal battle (or several).
On the day of the bill’s signing, Abbott acknowledged how “extreme” the bill is, arguing that this is a feature, rather than a bug, of the legislation. “With SB 4, the consequences of it are so extreme the people being smuggled by the cartels, they will not be wanting to come into the State of Texas,” he said. “Cartels will not be wanting to come into the State of Texas, and so we expect a dramatic drop, well over 50%, maybe 75% of the people coming across the border will stop entering through the State of Texas.”
Abbott did not provide context or data for those numerical estimates, and when asked by reporters what Texas would do if Mexico refused to accept so many deported individuals, he replied, “We’re going to send them right back to Mexico.”
Abbott’s words come on the heels of a number of controversial statements about immigrants made by former President (and 2024 hopeful) Donald Trump this weekend. At one campaign rally in New Hampshire, Trump said, “They’re poisoning the blood of our country. They’re coming into our country from Africa, from Asia, all over the world.” A day later, at another rally, Trump doubled down on this anti-immigrant sentiment, pledging to shift “massive portions” of law enforcement to the border. “We have to clean up our country,” he said to a crowd in Nevada. “We have to get all the criminals.”
SB 4 is set to go into effect this March — but at least one lawsuit has already kicked into action, in an effort to prevent the bill from seeing the light of day. Here’s a breakdown of how exactly Abbott’s controversial bill works, and how the legal battle against it is taking shape.
How the SB new Texas immigration bill works
SB 4 is a sweeping immigration bill that offers unprecedented historical power to Texas police, judges, and state magistrates. The law makes it a crime for any non-U.S. citizen to enter Texas illegally from any other country; previously, migrants have possessed a legal right to request asylum once they have crossed over onto U.S. territory, regardless of how they entered.
If SB 4 goes into effect next spring, the right to request asylum will be a relic of the legal past. Instead, officers will have the right to arrest and immediately deport all non-U.S. citizens who have entered the country illegally. Those arrested individuals will then have two options: They can accept a judicial order to leave the country, or they can face prosecution, which could lead to six months of jail time. After their jail time is over, those individuals would, once again, receive a judicial order to leave the country. Failure to comply with that order could lead to a felony offense.
The implications of this bill are far-reaching. The legislation prevents officers from making arrests at places of worship, healthcare facilities, and schools, but not on college campuses. Also, SB 4 does not prohibit racial profiling by law enforcement officials. This is an extremely rare omission for an immigration bill, and especially relevant for a state like Texas, where one in five residents is foreign-born. To put it into perspective, over 10 million Mexicans live in the Lone Star state.
“It’s likely that [SB 4] will create a dragnet that ensnares not only undocumented immigrants, but also Americans and legal permanent residents,” said Representative Joaquin Castro, Democrat of San Antonio, per The New York Times.
The legal battle against Senate Bill 4 is taking shape
The day after Abbott signed SB 4 into law, three immigrants rights groups filed a lawsuit against the state of Texas. Those groups, who are represented by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), include El Paso County and two Texas-based immigrant advocacy organizations, Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center and American Gateways.
In the legal complaint, the plaintiffs called the new law “patently illegal,” referencing “the federal government’s exclusive immigration powers and the sensitive foreign policy implications of these powers.” They also pointed out the monetary implications of the bill; El Paso County estimates the passage of SB 4 could lead to as many as 8,000 additional arrests every year, which would likely require the construction of more jail facilities, which could cost $160 million, as well as an additional $24 million annually to house all of the arrested migrants.
Abbott has not yet publicly commented on the lawsuit, but the governor has explicitly criticized the federal government’s response to immigration. On Monday, after signing the bill, Abbott seemed more than prepared for the looming federal-state showdown regarding immigration law in America. “President (Joe) Biden’s deliberate inaction has left Texas to fend for itself,” Abbott said. “These laws will help stop the tidal wave of illegal entry into Texas, add additional funding to build more border wall and crackdown on human smuggling.”
But it’s not just the U.S. federal government that Abbott will now have to take on: It’s the Mexican federal government as well. Under SB 4, migrants who are ordered to leave will be taken to one of the ports of entry along the U.S. border with Mexico, even if those migrants aren’t from Mexico. This poses a major immigration dilemma for Mexico. Especially since, per the Associated Press, it was Venezuelans, not Mexicans, who comprised the largest percentage of migrants arrested in September and October of this year.
Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has announced that he, too, plans to oppose SB 4. “The foreign ministry is already working on the process to challenge this law,” he said on Tuesday.
