The border is so bad, it’s time to let Texas police enforce immigration laws | Opinion
.JPG "Migrants walk by a string of buoys placed on the water along the Rio Grande border with Mexico in Eagle Pass, Texas, on July 16, 2023. The buoy installation is part of an operation Texas is pursuing to secure its borders, but activists and some legislators say Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is exceeding his authority. (Suzanne Cordeiro/AFP/Getty Images/TNS)")
The porous Texas-Mexico border is a result of President Joe Biden’s bad policies. His decisions to lift the “Remain in Mexico” and stop the Title 42 policy have catapulted the border into an eternal loop of chaos.
A stunning video clip from September shows thousands of young men waiting to cross at Eagle Pass, a port of entry near the Rio Grande. Ten thousand migrants crossed in just 24 hours. Even the Democratic mayor blamed Biden’s policies.
U.S. Customs and Border Patrol apprehended more migrants crossing the southwest border in September than ever, almost 300,000. That’s nearly 2.5 million for the fiscal year 2023. Less than half a million migrants came to the U.S. via the Southern border in 2020.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has implored lawmakers, during a third special legislative session, to offer new solutions. Three of those passed the House last week and now head to the Senate. One bill would appropriate more than $1 billion for additional border barriers; another would increase penalties for human smugglers. The third, the most controversial bill, HB 4, would let police officers send people who cross the border illegally back to Mexico or arrest them.
HB 4, authored by Rep. David Spiller, R-Jacksboro, would make it a state crime for a migrant to enter Texas illegally and then authorize state police to arrest or return migrants via a port of entry back toward Mexico again. The migrants could be convicted of a misdemeanor and be punished by up to 180 days behind bars. The penalty increases to a felony if the migrant has repeatedly entered the country illegally.
Critics suggest Spiller’s bill oversteps, since only the federal government can enforce immigration laws. Others suggest it’s rooted in xenophobia.
On the House floor Thursday, Rep. Gina Hinojosa railed against the bill and then posted on social media that it wasn’t border security but “insanity.” Others suggested officers could arrest U.S. citizens by mistake.
Roberto Lopez, an advocacy manager at the Texas Civil Rights Project, told the Texas Observer that the bill “feels like a coming civil and human rights disaster” and that it “encourages mass profiling of people, especially on the border, but potentially across the entire state of Texas.”
Spiller says his bill isn’t in conflict with the federal government’s duties and just enforces laws already in place. It’s already against federal law to enter the United States illegally, but clearly federal law enforcement is unable to keep up with the task. Why wouldn’t Texas utilize what resources it has to reinforce such a law?
When the border is already overrun because Biden’s unable or unwilling to enforce federal law, it makes sense to mass measures that expand law enforcement’s capabilities to enforce federal laws. All first-world, sovereign nations protect their borders and anyone who advocates for lawlessness is rooting for chaos or worse.
Lawmakers smeared this bill as xenophobic because it seems like bad form to turn migrants away who’ve already broken the law because they traveled all this way to ostensibly break the law and planned to be allowed in the country despite doing so. If Biden’s policies hadn’t loosened, nobody would be trying to break the law to enter the U.S. at all and would even need to be sent home or arrested.
The war raging between Israel and Hamas isn’t just providing a lesson in foreign atrocities and the rampant antisemitism that exists here and around the world. It’s also exposing global stability, furthering our own need to secure our border, should tensions heighten further.
The San Diego Field Office Intelligence Unit of U.S. Customs and Border Protection circulated a memo recently suggesting that the outbreak of violence in the Middle East could affect migrants coming across the United States’ southern border.
The memo warned that “individuals inspired by, or reacting to the current Israel-Hamas conflict may attempt travel to or from the area of hostilities in the Middle East via circuitous transit across the Southwest border” and that members of patrol were advised to be vigilant when assessing lone, military-aged men and to ask about any possible affiliations with designated terrorist groups.
This is not to say that every person entering the U.S. legally or illegally means to do harm here. Of course, most migrants mean to connect with family or find gainful employment. But coming here illegally or crossing in places other than legal ports of entry immediately raises suspicions.
In lieu of the Biden administration radically shifting immigration or border policies that would increase security, it’s incumbent upon Texas policymakers and law enforcement to ensure that the citizens here are secure and safe and that law and order does indeed abound. In fact, it’s our moral obligation.
This story was originally published November 2, 2023 at 5:32 AM.
