Biden's Options for Responding to Abbott's Unconstitutional Border Enforcement Executive Order

[Nevilledog]

Link to tweet

Tweet text:

Elizabeth Goitein
@LizaGoitein
·
Follow
Gov. Abbott's executive order directing the Texas National Guard and state police to effectively deport undocumented individuals is unconstitutional. My colleagues @josephanunn and @EbrightYon explain why in today's @just_security:

justsecurity.org
The Biden Administration’s Options for Responding to Abbott’s Unconstitutional Border Enforcement...
The Texas governor has invoked war powers to respond to migrant arrivals at the border - potentially usurping federal prerogatives.
8:41 AM · Jul 13, 2022

https://www.justsecurity.org/82298/the-biden-administrations-options-for-responding-to-abbotts-unconstitutional-border-enforcement-executive-order/

Last week, Texas Governor Greg Abbott issued an executive order that directs the Texas National Guard and state police officers to apprehend undocumented individuals and return them to ports of entry along the border. In other words, the order stops just short of authorizing Texas Guardsmen and police to carry out deportations. This is not the first time that Abbott has sought to take border security and immigration enforcement—both exclusively federal prerogatives—into his own hands. But this is the most brazen and expansive attempt yet. Moreover, by referencing an obscure constitutional provision applicable in times of “invasion,” Abbott’s order appears to be invoking war powers as the basis for rounding up migrants and asylum-seekers. This approach is flagrantly unlawful, and the Biden administration can and should shut it down.

Some background: Since the start of the Biden administration, a record number of migrants and asylum-seekers have sought to enter the United States through its southern border. In May alone, U.S. Customs and Border Protection made nearly 240,000 arrests of undocumented individuals between ports of entry. (The 240,000 figure includes repeat encounters with individuals who had previously attempted to cross the border and been turned away as a COVID safety precaution under the government’s “Title 42 Order.” Government officials acknowledge that the Title 42 Order “has led to extraordinarily high recidivism rates” and “actually inflated [] numbers at the border.”) As the Department of Homeland Security has responded to this migration and tried to avoid a humanitarian crisis, Texas officials have pursued their own remedies.

In March 2021, shortly after President Biden took office, Abbott announced Operation Lone Star. That initiative has resulted in more than 10,000 Texas National Guardsmen and roughly 1,000 Texas state police officers being sent to the border. Relying on state emergency powers, Abbott initially directed part of these forces to arrest undocumented individuals for “trespassing” on private properties adjoining the border, and to deliver them to local Texas courts for prosecution.

By January 2022, a Texas court had ruled that trespass arrests under Operation Lone Star, an obvious pretext for conducting immigration enforcement, violate established law. The Supreme Court has long held that creating and enforcing immigration policy is “unquestionably” and “exclusively” a federal power. And Congress has prohibited states from performing immigration enforcement except at the direction of the U.S. Attorney General or with the consent of the Immigration and Naturalization Service.

*snip*

[LetMyPeopleVote]

1. This is a political stunt by Gregg Abbott and Biden should throw the book at Greg

[Nevilledog]

2. Abbott is a stunt