Washington, D.C. — The following is a statement from David Leopold, legal advisor to America’s Voice and Immigration Group Leader at UB Greensfelder LLP, reacting to the legal whiplash surrounding the Texas immigration law (SB4) and the larger stakes:
“The legal whiplash on display and related short-term implications shouldn’t distract anyone from the larger stakes and dangers of SB4 and its consequences for all Texans and our nation.
What Texas is attempting, in concert with what I’ve labeled as ‘the anti-immigrant judicial pipeline,’ represents a radical departure from settled federal law and the Constitution. Not only is Texas resting its legal argument on the dangerous ‘invasion’ clause, but it is seeking to usher in a new and dangerous era of state anti-immigrant policy making. It would undercut the federal government’s supremacy on immigration law and invite chaos and consequences that would result in harms well beyond immigrant communities.
The Texas legal strategy is best understood as part and parcel of a larger right-wing immigration vision dictated by politics and crystallized by Donald Trump and Stephen Miller. Their pledged second term immigration plans – characterized by mass-roundups and detention camps – would be turbocharged by continued legal rulings in favor of Texas.
Don’t allow the fig leaf of legal legitimacy offered by the Supreme Court’s contradictory ruling to give cover to the scope, radicalism and larger dangers of what Texas is attempting.”
- Also read the reaction from America’s Voice Executive Director Vanessa Cárdenas to the initial SCOTUS decision on SB4: “Texas SB4 Immigration Law Is a Disaster for Texas and the Nation”
