Texas Fuels “Invasion” Hysteria, Stops Common Sense Progress
Washington, DC – Today, Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas declared an “invasion” in his state by immigrants. This could trigger his use of state resources and the National Guard to expel immigrants and could cause a state’s rights Constitutional crisis as Texas unilaterally declares a war on asylum seekers.
Yesterday, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals heard oral arguments in Texas vs. United States, in which Texas and a contingent of other GOP-run states argued in favor of ending the popular and successful Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) initiative. The hostility from Texas toward the tens of thousands of DACA recipients and their families who are living and thriving in their state is far from an outlier.
In fact, Texas is impeding progress and solutions on immigration in three distinct and reinforcing ways:
- Advancing ugly nativist policy at state level despite the dangers and costs. Gov. Abbott’s actions today to declare an “invasion” has been a priority for anti-immigration Republican activists in numerous states. He has now caved in to that pressure to declare an invasion and the legal consequences are unsure. Local officials from multiple Texas counties joined national and state anti-immigrant Republicans to declare that the “migrant crisis at the southern border is an ‘invasion’ yesterday – doubling down on their mainstreaming of white nationalist conspiracies despite the linkages to Buffalo and other mass-shootings. Meanwhile, Gov. Abbott’s “Operation Lone Star” border initiative is facing renewed scrutiny over alleged civil rights violations, after coming under investigation for other types of waste, fraud and abuse. This comes on top of other Abbott political stunts trying to stoke fear over immigrants – and position himself for reelection and/or national office – at massive taxpayer expense (recall the April truck inspection stunt that cost the state billions of dollars and detected zero drugs or weapons).
- Leading the judicial challenges to sensible pro-immigrant policies. Whether it’s the challenge to DACA or the recent ruling against common-sense immigration priorities to target enforcement resources against public safety threats, Texas is the tip of the spear of what we call the “anti-immigrant judicial pipeline.” Here’s how it works: Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton forum shops for a friendly federal judge in the reliably conservative Fifth Circuit and sues to block a Biden administration immigration policy; The Fifth Circuit appeals court affirms; and the right wing dominated Supreme Court seals the deal. With the nation’s highest Court primed to rollback precedents and curtail rights, this judicial pipeline is gushing.
- Helping block sensible legislative reforms in Congress and citing said obstruction to justify judicial activism: Finally, Texas lawmakers play an outsized role in blocking the needed reforms to fix our immigration system – see the role of Senator John Cornyn over the years and what we’ve deemed the “Cornyn Con” alongside the more overt hostility to pro-immigrant legislation from Senator Ted Cruz and much of the rest of the Texas GOP congressional delegation. Making matters worse, the failure of Congress to enact said reforms is then cited by the Texas anti-immigrant judicial actors to further their arguments. As Bloomberg Law highlighted from yesterday’s DACA hearing, “Texas Solicitor General Judd E. Stone II, in his comments to the panel, said Congress has repeatedly refused to amend immigration laws to specifically protect Dreamers, failing to pass a measure tailored for them at least seven times by 2015. ‘Congress has rejected the Dream Act every time it’s been proposed.’” It’s a vicious cycle.
The following is a statement from Mario Carrillo, Campaigns Director for America’s Voice and whose wife is a DACA-recipient:
“Texas is the tip of the anti-immigrant spear that is aimed at immigrants all across America. Republicans in my state want to stoke fear around immigrants in an effort to grow their political power. Gov. Abbott has decided that families like mine don’t have a place in Texas. But we’re not going anywhere. The legal ramifications of a state unilaterally declaring an ‘invasion’ by peaceful migrants seeking out U.S. authorities to whom they can request asylum are hard to fathom. But this is not a question of law or policy, this is another stunt in political theater to position the Governor for his campaign and any future campaigns and will no doubt be the talk of Fox News.
Texas has set up a vicious circle of extreme state policy, aggressive state judicial action, and relentless legislative obstruction in Congress to block long overdue sensible solutions and to strip away hard-won policy victories like DACA or asylum law. They’ve failed to show any empathy for migrant lives lost in our state, instead using tragedy to try and score cheap political points. It’s ugly and the Texas GOP is directly at odds with the best interests of our state and at odds with what the majority of Americans want.”
