The House of Representatives has introduced a bill giving the state the power to “repel” and return migrants crossing the Mexican border.

AUSTIN, Texas. Speaker of the Texas House of Representatives Dade Phelan supported a startling border security bill that would create a state division of officers empowered to “repel” and arrest migrants crossing the border outside a port of entry and return migrants to Mexico if they are seen attempting an illegal crossing borders.

House Bill 20, a priority legislation filed by state Rep. Matt Schaefer, R-Tyler, will certainly test the limits of a state’s ability to enforce immigration laws that the courts have historically considered to be within federal jurisdiction.

And in a sign that the upper house is also ready to test the limits of the state’s immigration authority, Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick, who oversees the Senate, has announced that he supports a Senate bill that would make it a state offense for people who enter Texas illegally. A Senate bill proposed by Senator Brian Birdwell, a Granbury Republican, would put a person in jail for a year or two if they try to enter the country a second time. The proposal would also punish a person with life imprisonment if they have previously been convicted of a felony.

Currently, under federal law, a person arrested for entering the country without a permit can be charged with a misdemeanor. If they are arrested a second time by border guards, the person may be charged with a criminal offense and banned from entering the country for a certain number of years.

The Schaefer House bill creates a “Border Security Squad” whose members can “arrest, detain, and restrain individuals who cross the border illegally, including through the use of non-lethal force.” The bill states that the unit’s officers must be US citizens or permanent legal residents, or have law enforcement experience. The bill also proposes to grant the unit’s officers immunity “from criminal and civil liability for any act authorized” by the proposed law. The bill also states that a unit chief may hire civilians who have not been convicted of a felony “to participate in the unit’s operations and functions, but such individuals may not have powers of arrest unless they have received training and special authorization.” from the governor.

Roberto Lopez, senior program advocacy manager beyond the borders of the Texas Civil Rights Project, called Schaefer’s bill “the most dangerous proposal we’ve ever seen on border issues.”

“A new military force under Gov. Greg Abbott, potentially manned by law enforcement-appointed vigilantes, will provide no protection to frontier communities,” Lopez said. “Attempting to address what is essentially a humanitarian crisis with a full-scale military response demonstrates a reckless disregard for the safety of people in our state and a fundamental misunderstanding of the root causes of problems on our border.”

Like the Senate bill, Schaefer’s bill would also make trespassing on Texas property by migrants entering from Mexico a felony.

Schaefer’s legislation also states that if the federal government ever declares another public health emergency for COVID-19 or imposes any COVID-19 vaccination requirements on any U.S. citizens, including government and medical workers, the state would be allowed to remove the migrants “as quickly as possible.”

Schaefer did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Phelan’s office did not respond to questions posted about the law, but said in a statement posted Friday night: “Dealing with our state’s border and humanitarian crisis is a must for the Texas home this year.”

Cesar Cuauhtemoc Garcia Hernandez, an immigration attorney and professor of law at Ohio State University, said any attempt by Texas to enforce immigration law would lead to lawsuits.

“This proposal will certainly bring the officers of this new Texas border guard unit into direct conflict with the Border Patrol and ICE agents. [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] officers, raising a serious constitutional issue,” he said.

He also said that if the proposal was passed into law, it would send a strong signal that Texas is not interested in helping asylum seekers.

“Texas is closed to business when it comes to taking in people fleeing political repression,” he said.

The proposal comes as Texas has spent more than $4 billion to reduce the number of migrants entering the state. Over the past two years, state lawmakers have deployed thousands of Department of Public Safety and National Guard troops to the border in an attempt to keep migrants from entering the state. The state has also provided hundreds of millions of dollars to build a state-funded border wall and prosecute some migrants who crossed the border in state court for offenses such as trespassing.

In fiscal year 2022, which ended in September, border officials arrested migrants 2.4 million times, a record number. Many people in Latin America and the Caribbean seek refuge in the United States because they are fleeing a repressive government and an economic disaster that has resulted in few jobs.

Chelsea Cramer, Texas organizer of the American Immigration Council, a Washington, DC-based group that advocates for immigrants, said state laws meant only to deter migrants do not provide long-term solutions. She added that at a time when employers are looking for workers, Texans should be looking for immigrants to help fill those jobs.

“No matter how hard the leadership wants to stop immigration, it will not stop,” she said. “Instead, we should look for ways to use the population coming to the US to support our economy.”

She noted that the ambitious efforts of Abbott’s border mission, dubbed Operation Lone Star, combined with the federal government’s own measures, have not reduced the number of people trying to enter the country.

She also added that Schaefer’s proposal does not take into account how Texas will work with Mexico, which will have to agree to accept people being returned by government officials.

Currently, under federal immigration policy, if a person is not a Mexican citizen, Mexico must negotiate with the US to determine how many and whether the country is willing to accept non-Mexican citizens.

Schaefer’s proposal is the latest in which Texas is challenging the federal government’s right to be the sole enforcer of immigration law. As of 2021, Texas began building a state-funded border wall, sent state police officers to patrol the border, and approved the movement of migrants caught in the state back to ports of entry so they could be processed by immigration authorities. .

Schaefer, a member of the Texas House of Representatives’ right-wing Freedom Caucus, is one of the biggest immigration hawks in the Legislature. In 2017, he introduced an amendment to a bill aimed at banning so-called sanctuary cities in the state, which allowed police to ask about immigration status while interacting with police. After a heated debate that ruptured relations in the Legislative Assembly, the bill passed and went into effect after it was signed into law by Gov. Greg Abbott.

Immigrant rights advocates have derided the law as a “show me your ID” law, saying it would undermine trust between police and communities where illegal immigrants have lived, most of the time peacefully, for decades.

When Arizona passed a state law in 2010 that allowed cops to arrest people if they couldn’t provide documentation of legal presence in the country, the Obama administration sued the state, arguing that immigration laws could only be enforced by the federal government. In 2012, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a 5 v 3 decision that local police do not have the power to arrest anyone solely on the basis of their immigration status.

During a meeting of the State Senate Committee on Border Security last year, First Assistant Attorney General of Texas Brent Webster told senators that Paxton’s office disagreed with the ruling and “welcomes the laws” that will trigger litigation “because the composition of the Supreme Court has changed.”

In his single term, Trump has appointed three Supreme Court Justices, more than any president since Ronald Reagan, who has appointed four in two terms.

“We ask you guys to consider laws that could allow us to go and challenge this [Supreme Court] decision again,” Webster added.

James Barragan contributed to this report.

This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune on

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