Greg Abbott Suffers Border Loss Hours Before Biden Visit

Texas Governor Greg Abbott suffered a legal blow on Thursday when a federal court temporarily blocked the state's new deportation law from taking effect on March 5.

The United States District Court for the Western District of Texas today granted a motion for preliminary injunction to block Texas Senate Bill 4, which was approved by an 88 to 4 voting margin and would permit local and state law enforcement to arrest, detain and remove individuals suspected of entering the state illegally from other countries. The decision came as President Joe Biden was on his way to Texas to visit the border.

The ruling falls on the same day that Biden and Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump are visiting the Texas cities of Brownsville and Eagle Pass, respectively. Biden plans to meet with federal Border Patrol agents while Trump will enter the immigration epicenter of Eagle Pass.

"Texas will immediately appeal this decision, and we will not back down in our fight to protect our state—and our nation—from President Biden's border crisis," Abbott said in a statement shared by his office with Newsweek.

"The president of the United States has a constitutional duty to enforce federal laws protecting States, including laws already on the books that mandate the detention of illegal immigrants. Texas has the right to defend itself because of President Biden's ongoing failure to fulfill his duty to protect our state from the invasion at our southern border. Even from the bench, this district judge acknowledged that this case will ultimately be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court."

The Context

The ruling comes after a lawsuit was filed in December 2023 by civil rights groups including the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the ACLU of Texas, the Texas Civil Rights Project (TCRP) on behalf of El Paso County, American Gateways, and Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center.

Abbott and Texas Department of Public Safety Director Steven McGraw were the defendants in the suit, which was later consolidated with a lawsuit by the Department of Justice.

What We Know

The 114-page ruling says that "several factors warrant an injunction," including precedent affirming that states "may not exercise immigration enforcement power except as authorized by the federal government."

The ruling also states that S.B. 4 "conflicts with key provisions of federal immigration law, to the detriment of the United States' foreign relations and treaty obligations."

"Surges in immigration do not constitute an 'invasion' within the meaning of the Constitution, nor is Texas engaging in war by enforcing S.B. 4," Federal Judge David Ezra wrote in his ruling. "To allow Texas to permanently supersede federal directives on the basis of an invasion would amount to nullification of federal law and authority—a notion that is antithetical to the Constitution and has been unequivocally rejected by federal courts since the Civil War."

Allowing such law in Texas to take hold "could open the door" for other states to mimic such laws and pass their own similar versions of legislation, Ezra added, which he cautioned could "force the federal government to navigate a patchwork of inconsistent regulations."

"S.B. 4 threatens the fundamental notion that the United States must regulate immigration with one voice," he said, warning of the U.S. "suffering grave irreparable harm."

Texas' southern border crossings increased from 1.05 million in fiscal year 2021 to 1.33 million and 1.31 million in fiscal years 2022 and 2023, according to federal data. Between October and January of the current fiscal year, there have been about 448,800 illegal encounters.

Abbott prioritized the issue to coincide with the early stages of the Biden administration, launching Operation Lone Star in March 2021 due to an influx of illegal migrants crossing into his state from Mexico.

The operation, which now encompasses 48 statewide counties and mostly those along or near the border, declares that the Texas DPS should "use available resources to enforce all applicable federal and state laws to prevent the criminal activity along the border, including criminal trespassing, smuggling, and human trafficking, and to assist Texas counties in their efforts to address those criminal activities."

Views

Edna Yang, co-executive director of one of the lawsuit's plaintiffs, American Gateways, lauded the judge's decision. The organization has served the Central Texas immigrant community since 1987.

Yang told Newsweek via phone that permitting S.B. 4 and allowing Texas to make its own laws, without the purview of the federal government, would have set a bad precedent.

"I think it's well-known that the federal government is the agency and entity that regulates immigration...States taking the law into their own hands and trying to interpret federal immigration laws, or creating laws that bypass laws (such as those fleeing persecution) is pretty dangerous," Yang said.

"Nobody disagrees on either side of the political spectrum that the immigration system is broken," she added, but said laws should address how communities and individuals in such communities are most impacted—mentioning immigrants seeking protection from perilous native conditions, and the ability for them to have access to courts and be reserved due process.

She also said that the issue is not about just decreasing border crossings but framing immigration laws in ways that meet a changing society and world.

"Our immigration laws are incredibly old and need to be reformed," Yang said. "I don't presume to have any answers on that, but I think solutions need to come from the federal government and from both [main political] parties."

Robert Heyman, assistant director of policy and development with another plaintiff, Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center of El Paso, told Newsweek via phone that Ezra's ruling was "heartening" due to the effects of S.B. 4 being "so destructive to communities across the border and the state get put in its place."

"We're very happy with the ruling," Heyman said. "We're very happy with the sort of comprehensive review that Judge Ezra went through and that means what's in his ruling reflects a lot more of the actual sort of realities and policy changes on the ground at the border than any of the rhetoric out of the state of Texas and the sort of things they are looking to implement in a bill like S.B. 4."

The ruling is important because Texas can't intrude on the federal government to engage in foreign policy related to immigration or deport individuals on its own merits, he added, saying that such would conflict with federal prerogative to regulate.

"The judge's decision is very clear that Texas or any other state that may be looking to get into the immigration space really has no leg to stand on," he said.

El Paso County Attorney Jo Anne Bernal told Newsweek via email that the decision recognized the potential "harm" that would be caused to El Paso County.

"El Paso taxpayers will pay for the consequences of a bill that is unnecessary," Bernal said. "It is the federal government's responsibility to enforce immigration law. The State of Texas should not lay that responsibility on the backs of local law enforcement or local governmental entities.

"It is a divisive and dangerous law, and we are very grateful that, at least for now, will not take effect."

A statement from the ACLU provided to Newsweek shared similar sentiments.

"The federal court's decision confirms over a century of Supreme Court precedent, affirming that immigration enforcement is squarely within the federal government's authority," said Anand Balakrishnan, senior staff attorney at the ACLU's Immigrants' Rights Project. "S.B. 4 is a blatantly unconstitutional attempt to bypass federal law. We applaud the court's decision, but we must ensure this harmful law is struck down altogether."

What's Next

Heyman said that some sort of appeal by Texas officials is anticipated, though the timeline for that discretion remains unknown.

In the meantime, he says this ruling allows for communities to take further precautions and experience "a little less nervousness."

"People need to stay vigilant," he said. "The sorts of measures that folks were taking last week, earlier this month to start to protect themselves from S.B. 4—knowing their rights and having contingency plans—is still something that folks should be doing. That doesn't go away with this ruling."

Update 02/29/24, 1:05 p.m. ET: This story was updated with additional information and comments from lawsuit plaintiffs.