Austin, Texas-
Texas Governor Greg Abbott on Thursday authorized state forces to detain migrants and return them to the US-Mexico border, overstepping the limits of his enforcement powers and mounting Republican efforts to curb the growing number of migrants. crosses.
The federal government is responsible for enforcing immigration laws. An immigrant rights group denounced the move and called for swift intervention from the Biden administration, which did not immediately react to Abbott’s order.
For more than a year, Texas has patrolled the border with an increasingly heavy hand. Abbott on Wednesday refrained from authorizing Texas soldiers and members of the National Guard, which he has already deployed to the border by the thousands, to take migrants through ports of entry and into Mexico, disappointing former officials. of the Trump administration who urged him to do so.
The order’s impact was unclear, including how widely it would be used and under what circumstances. But the authority Abbott described would amount to a significant and untested expansion of the normal powers of the National Guard and state police, which have so far turned migrants over to Border Patrol agents and, in some cases, carried out arrests on state trespassing charges.
Among the questions raised by the measure is the training that state forces have to detain and transport migrants. Legal experts had hoped the move would invite court challenges.
Crosses are at or near the highest level in about two decades. At the Texas border, US authorities stopped migrants from crossing illegally 523,000 times between January and May, up from 417,000 during the same period a year ago.
Abbott blamed the Biden administration and spent more than $3 billion in state funds on a huge border security apparatus. But the state operation has not stopped the flow of migrants.
“As the challenges at the border continue to mount, Texas will continue to take steps to address the challenges caused by the Biden Administration.” Abbott said.
US Customs and Border Protection officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Laurence Benenson of the National Immigration Forum said he expects legal challenges as Texas tries to establish its own immigration enforcement policy, which conflicts with long-standing legal precedents that are the responsibility of the federal government.
He also said it’s unclear how police officers in Texas would stop people solely for not having legal status and not having committed a crime. Attempts to expand state powers to enforce immigration policy have failed in the past, including Arizona’s “papers, please” law that the Supreme Court struck down in 2012 when Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote that “the state may follow policies that undermine federal law.
The Supreme Court recently struck down a Republican-led lawsuit from Texas and Missouri to prevent the Biden administration from ending a Trump-era policy that forced asylum seekers to wait in Mexico while their application is considered. That ruling, Berenson said, affirmed the federal government’s role in enforcing immigration law.
“It’s recognized that we don’t want to open the door for states to come up with 50 different immigration enforcement policies,” Berenson said.
Abbott announced the order in a statement, and his office did not immediately respond to questions about how it would be implemented.
The announcement comes two days after former Trump administration officials and sheriffs in several South Texas cities called on Abbott to declare what they called an “invasion” and use extraordinary powers normally reserved for war. His plan involves a novel interpretation of the US Constitution for the National Guard or state police to forcibly send migrants to Mexico, disregarding immigration laws and enforcement procedures. the law.
The idea has been around on the right wing of the GOP for years, but has gained traction among conservatives since Biden took office.
The Center for Renewing America, a conservative policy think tank run by former Trump administration officials, has been pushing the effort and criticized Abbott’s order as it does not require the removal of immigrants.
“That is critical. Otherwise, this is still catch and release,” the group said in a statement.
US border authorities are apprehending migrants more frequently at the southern border than at any time in at least two decades. Migrants were stopped nearly 240,000 times in May, a third more than a year ago.
Comparisons with pre-pandemic levels are tricky because migrants removed under a public health authority known as Title 42 face no legal consequences, encouraging repeat attempts. Authorities say that 25% of encounters in May were with people who had been detained at least once in the previous year.
The advocacy group RAICES, which provides legal services to immigrant and refugee families, called Abbott’s move an excess of power and urged the Biden administration to intervene.
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Associated Press reporter Julie Watson in San Diego contributed to this report.