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El Paso County joins ACLU in lawsuit challenging SB 4 [1]
['Cindy Ramirez', 'More Cindy Ramirez', 'El Paso Matters']
Date: 2023-12-19
Update 6 p.m. Tuesday, Dec. 19: This story has been updated to include comments from various elected and city officials.
El Paso County is joining the ACLU lawsuit challenging the legality of a new state law that would make it a state crime to illegally cross the border from Mexico.
The El Paso County Commissioners Court on Monday voted unanimously to fight the implementation of Senate Bill 4, which was signed into law by Gov. Greg Abbott that same day. It’s expected to go into effect on March 5 unless it is stopped by the courts.
“El Paso has long been at the forefront of fighting against terrible immigration policy and I’m glad to see that we’re continuing to do so,” Commissioner David Stout said at the meeting. “Not only is this gonna have serious social implications, we’re probably gonna see increases in racial profiling and other terrible violations of people’s rights and violations of the Constitution.”
The American Civil Liberties Union of Texas, the ACLU and the Texas Civil Rights Project on Tuesday filed the lawsuit, which argues that the law violates the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution and bypasses federal law.
“Texas judges would be authorized — and in some cases, required — to order a person’s deportation regardless of whether a person is eligible to seek asylum or other humanitarian protections under federal law,” the ACLU said in a statement.
SB 4 is one of several border security initiatives approved by the legislature and signed into law by Abbott on Monday, including a bill that allocates more than $1.5 billion to expand the border wall.
SB 4 has been the most controversial because it would give state and local police authority to arrest undocumented immigrants anywhere in the state.
Supporters of the law say it would curb illegal immigration and enforce laws they say the federal government is not, while opponents say the law will lead to racial profiling and cost counties millions in local tax dollars to jail and prosecute those arrested.
“These laws will help stop the tidal wave of illegal entry into Texas, add additional funding to build more border wall, and crack down on human smuggling,” Abbott said in a statement issued after he signed SB 4 into law during a ceremony in Brownsville. He called the new laws a “transformative package of border security legislation.”
City, county officials on the bill
The plaintiffs include the county of El Paso, Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center in El Paso and the American Gateways; while the lawsuit names Steven McCraw, director of the Texas Department of Public Safety and Bill Hicks, El Paso district attorney, as defendants.
Hicks said he fully anticipated there would be a lawsuit filed, but was surprised to have been named as a defendant by his own county. He said he didn’t know why he was named as a defendant.
“My job is focused on laws that have passed and are actually on the books,” Hicks said during a press conference at the El Paso County Courthouse on Tuesday.
He said that the law wouldn’t go into effect until March, and that the lawsuit and likely pending injunction could prevent it from being enforced at all until the courts settle the case. Hicks said he anticipates the case will reach the Supreme Court.
Hicks said his office will focus on criminal cases that have victims, but would evaluate any SB 4 cases that reached his office on a case-by-case basis if the law is upheld and he is still in office. Hicks, a Republican, was appointed to the office by Abbott to complete the unexpired term of ousted DA Yvonne Rosales. He’s up for election next year.
In an interview with El Paso Matters last month, Hicks said that state dollars from programs such as the governor’s Border Prosecution Unit and Operation Lone Star could provide funding for the additional workload that SB 4 does not.
Stout said the law could cost El Paso County up to $50 million a year to jail those who are arrested under the law and up to $250 million to build an additional jail if one is needed.
El Paso City Attorney Karla Nieman said the El Paso Police Department doesn’t enforce federal immigration laws and that the city will continue to “prioritize the public health and safety of our community to include our residents and visitors.”
“There are significant concerns with SB4 including lack of training and funding for what is being directed,” Nieman said in a statement. “Now that there is a lawsuit there will be several issues the courts will need to review and answer.”
Calling on the Department of Justice
U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-Texas, and other Democrats and members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus on Monday sent a letter to the U.S. Department of Justice asking it to pursue legal action to prevent the law from being enforced.
“The process of removing people from the United States is constitutionally a federal process and excluding federal authorities, including Department of Homeland Security agents trained in immigration law and federal judges trained to enforce it, will obstruct asylum cases, result in erroneous determinations, and put many people in danger,” the lawmakers wrote.
El Paso Democratic Congresswoman Veronica Escobar was among those who signed the letter.
The congresswoman issued a statement on Tuesday, saying she was proud El Paso was standing up against Abbott’s “brazenly unconstitutional effort to detain and jail migrants under SB4.”
“There is no doubt that the situation at our southern border requires urgent action. But make no mistake about it: Texas isn’t trying to find a solution,” she stated. “The State of Texas has sued the Biden administration to prevent it from implementing changes that could help address the situation, and Governor Abbott has chosen to use this historic western hemispheric refugee crisis as a political opportunity.”
Escobar called on Congress to support the Dignity Act, a bipartisan comprehensive immigration reform bill she proposed alongside a Florida Republican congresswoman.
Calling it “one of the country’s most extreme anti-immigrant laws,” a group of legal advocacy, immigrant rights and faith-based organizations across Texas and New Mexico also urged the DOJ to step in and called on the Biden administration to sue the state of Texas to “stop all efforts related to Operation Lone Star.”
Among those groups is Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center in El Paso, Texas, New Mexico and Ciudad Juárez, Mexico.
“If SB 4 is implemented, countless U.S. citizens, mixed status households, and undocumented immigrants will be subjected to unlawful interrogations, searches, seizures, and arrests in violation of the Fourth Amendment based on how ‘foreign’ they look and how they behave,’” Las Americas Executive Director Marisa Limón Garza said in a press statement.
Sarah Cruz, a policy and advocacy strategist for immigrants’ rights with the ACLU of Texas, said the bill will instill fear in communities and people of color and further traumatize asylum seekers.
“The bill violates international and federal law and interferes with the asylum process, potentially causing further trauma and distress to people seeking asylum, including families and children,” she said in a press statement.
Melissa Lopez, executive director of Diocesan Migrant and Refugee Services, took it a step further.
“The State’s assault on migrants has resulted in far too many deaths. Countless people will lose their lives, end up in jail, and be deported before legal challenges invalidate the law,” she said in a statement.
Lopez added that communities and organizations such as the DMRS ensure that anyone impacted by the law has “access to legal representation, understand their rights, and know how to assert them when confronted by law enforcement.”
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[1] Url:
https://elpasomatters.org/2023/12/19/sb-4-immigration-lawsuit-aclu-el-paso-county-commissioners/
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