Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed (R) a law allowing state police to arrest migrants who crossed the U.S.-Mexico border illegally.
The law, called SB 4, will take effect in March 2024 and codifies illegal entry or re-entry into Texas as a crime, with penalties ranging from 180 days in jail to 20 years in prison.
Texas magistrate judges will also be required to order migrants to return to Mexico, with up to 20-year sentences for those who refuse to comply.
“The consequences of it are so extreme that the people being smuggled by the cartels, they will not want to be coming into the state of Texas,” Abbott said at a press conference in Brownsville.
Today in Brownsville, I signed three new laws to better protect Texans AND Americans from Biden’s open border policies.
Illegal entry into Texas is now a crime subject to removal or imprisonment.
Texas will also fund new wall construction & increase human smuggling penalties. pic.twitter.com/EVGcYf4HJs
— Greg Abbott (@GregAbbott_TX) December 19, 2023
“Biden’s deliberate inaction has left Texas to fend for itself,” he added.
This comes as Border Patrol stated they encountered 12,000 illegal aliens at the border in Eagle Pass, Texas, on Monday — the largest group ever recorded in a single day.
Eagle Pass, TX. Now. Per CBP sources, 5,000 bodies here on the US side. 7,000 bodies staged in Mexico across the Rio preparing for illegal entry. This is not mass refugee asylum. This is an open border invasion program. pic.twitter.com/aprlUscn27
— Nephi Tyler (@nephityler) December 19, 2023
“I’ve spent hundreds of days there over the last 2+ years and I’ve never seen it like this,” Fox News correspondent Bill Melugin wrote on X with a video showing a massive sea of illegal migrants along the southern border wall.
BREAKING: Video from a contact on the ground in Eagle Pass, TX right now shows a mass of thousands of migrants waiting to be processed by Border Patrol after they crossed illegally today. I’ve spent hundreds of days there over the last 2+ years and I’ve never seen it like this. pic.twitter.com/JPNYY7sPxI
— Bill Melugin (@BillMelugin_) December 19, 2023
Over 6 million illegal aliens have been apprehended at the U.S. southern border since Biden captured the White House in 2021.
Recall in 2019 Joe Biden told migrants to “immediately surge to the border” if he won the presidency in 2020.
“We’re a nation that says if you want to flee and you’re afraid of oppression, you should come,” Biden said.
Migrants from all over the world have gotten the message, and many cite Biden’s open border policies as the reason they’re now amassing at the U.S. border. in record numbers.
“I love you, Joe Biden! Thank you for everything, Joe Biden!” one illegal migrant said on video. He is now in New York City.
“I love you, Joe Biden! Thank you for everything, Joe Biden!”
— An illegal immigrant after crossing the southern borderpic.twitter.com/ayR0yIpKYL
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) December 5, 2023
