Administration claims that enforcing immigration law is the sole purview of the federal government.
The Biden administration sued Texas yesterday because Governor Greg Abbott and state legislators decided the Lone Star State must do the job Biden won’t do.
The lawsuit seeks to stop Texas from enforcing SB4, a law that criminalizes entering Texas illegally across the southwest border and also allows state officials to deport illegal aliens. The administration claims that enforcing immigration law is the sole purview of the federal government.
As well this week, the administration sought permission from the U.S. Supreme Court to remove razor wire that Texas authorities installed to stop the illegal-alien invasion that Biden is aiding and abetting.
Justice Department Files Lawsuit Against the State of Texas Regarding Unconstitutional SB 4 Immigration Lawhttps://t.co/UVXGosHCVy pic.twitter.com/dJLGCHq8eT
— DOJ Civil Division (@DOJCivil) January 4, 2024
The Lawsuit
Filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas, the 22-page lawsuit seeks “to preserve its exclusive authority under federal law to regulate the entry and removal of noncitizens.”
Texas, the lawsuit says, simply has no right to create immigration laws and arrogate unto itself the power to control the southwest border, at least where Texas is concerned:
Texas’s Senate Bill 4 (SB 4) creates purported state immigration crimes for unlawful entry and unlawful reentry, permits state judges and magistrates to order the removal of noncitizens from the country, and mandates that state officials carry out those removal orders. But Texas cannot run its own immigration system. Its efforts, through SB 4, intrude on the federal government’s exclusive authority to regulate the entry and removal of noncitizens, frustrate the United States’ immigration operations and proceedings, and interfere with U.S. foreign relations. SB 4 is invalid and must be enjoined.
The Lawsuit
Filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas, the 22-page lawsuit seeks “to preserve its exclusive authority under federal law to regulate the entry and removal of noncitizens.”
Texas, the lawsuit says, simply has no right to create immigration laws and arrogate unto itself the power to control the southwest border, at least where Texas is concerned:
Texas’s Senate Bill 4 (SB 4) creates purported state immigration crimes for unlawful entry and unlawful reentry, permits state judges and magistrates to order the removal of noncitizens from the country, and mandates that state officials carry out those removal orders. But Texas cannot run its own immigration system. Its efforts, through SB 4, intrude on the federal government’s exclusive authority to regulate the entry and removal of noncitizens, frustrate the United States’ immigration operations and proceedings, and interfere with U.S. foreign relations. SB 4 is invalid and must be enjoined.
Of course, Traitor Joe Biden is the culprit behind the effort to “frustrate the United States’ immigration operations and proceedings.” He refuses to enforce black-letter immigration law on myriad counts.
That not insignificant fact aside, the lawsuit cites the federal Constitution’s Supremacy Clause as one reason Texas has zero authority to regulate the southwest border:
Under the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause, the Constitution and federal immigration laws, including the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), are — like all federal Laws — “the supreme Law of the Land … any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.”… Through the Supremacy Clause, state laws may be preempted in various ways.
Under the doctrine of field preemption, “the States are precluded from regulating conduct in a field that Congress, acting within its proper authority, has determined must be regulated by its exclusive governance.”
Federal laws always preempt or supersede state laws when they conflict, the lawsuit argues, and the Constitution empowers the federal government to control immigration.
“Thus, as the Supreme Court recognized, the ‘Government of the United States has broad, undoubted power over the subject of immigration and the status of’ noncitizens,” the lawsuit argues.
And only the federal government, the lawsuit says, can punish illegal aliens, most notably with deportation…