Battle for the Border

The Daily Mail reported a couple days ago that Texas Governor "Greg Abbott enacts sweeping new powers allowing cops to ARREST illegals and judges to boot migrants back to Mexico - setting up showdown with the Feds." 

    The law, known as SB4, takes effect in March and allows any Texas law enforcement officer to arrest people who are suspected of entering the country illegally. Those who re-enter face penalties ranging from 180 days in jail to 20 years in prison. 

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    Once in custody, illegal migrants could either agree to a Texas judge's order to leave the US or be prosecuted on misdemeanor charges of illegal entry.

    Migrants who don't leave could face arrest again under more serious felony charges.

    Abbott accused the White House of doing 'nothing to halt illegal immigration.'

    'Joe Biden's deliberate inaction has decimated America,' Abbott said.

    'The consequences of [the new law] are so extreme that the people being smuggled by the cartels, they will not want to be coming into the state of Texas,' he said.

    Abbott claimed 8million people have crossed the border illegally since Biden, a Democrat, took office in January 2021.

    Abbott defended the new law as constitutional, saying Texas had been left to 'fend for itself.' Typically, immigration policy and enforcement have been the responsibility of the federal government. But several southern governors have taken the matter into their own hands saying Biden has dropped the ball. 

    Abbott said the bill passed by the Republican-majority Texas state legislature last month was needed to 'stop the tidal wave of illegal entry into Texas.'

    Abbott said the bill makes it a 'criminal offense for illegal entry into Texas from a foreign nation.

    'For repeat offenders it creates the offense of illegal reentry with a potential prison sentence term of up to 20 years,' he said.

    The bill also 'provides a mechanism to order an illegal immigrant to return to the foreign nation from which they entered,' he said. 

    Migrant crossings have remained at roughly 2,000 per day within the Del Rio Sector with most of those being encountered Venezuelans, Hondurans and Colombians.

Of course, Texas has already been sued over the new law by the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas, the ACLU, and the Texas Civil Rights Project (TCRP). The criticism of the bill, per the article, is that it will strain already overcrowded jails and that it "violates the Supremacy Clause of the United States Constitution." Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has also pledged to fight the new Texas law, according to The Hill. 

    In other news:

• "Study: Nearly 3-in-5 Illegal Alien Households are On Taxpayer-Funded Welfare"--Breitbart. 
• "Arizona Sheriff Mark Lamb: Every Illegal Alien Crossing Border Received $5,000 Gift Card (VIDEO)"--The Gateway Pundit.
• "Poll: Most Americans Want Businesses Prosecuted for Hiring Illegal Aliens"--Breitbart. That would be like 99% of the farmers and ranchers. But as Turchin's research has shown, what most Americans want has zero impact on what the government does. As an example, see this next article:
• "Federal Judge Reverses Temporary Order Blocking Feds from Cutting Texas Border Barriers"--Breitbart.
• "Hispanic leaders on border talks: It’s a trap"--The Hill. They are afraid that the negotiations between Republicans and Democrats trading Ukraine funding for greater border protections might actually wind up restricting the number of illegals. 
• "Republicans have set a border trap. Biden can't afford to fall for it"--Salon. Concerned that a deal won't include increased H1B visa holders to drive down the salaries of tech jobs and won't include some sort of amnesty for illegals already here.