Advocates, Border Residents Denounce Unconstitutional New Texas Immigration Law

Austin, TX – This morning, advocates and border residents met outside the United States Courthouse in Austin, Texas, to strongly condemn Texas’s Senate Bill 4 ahead of the first day of federal court hearings in two challenges to the law. Speakers at the press conference included litigants in the lawsuit filed by the ACLU, the ACLU of Texas, and the Texas Civil Rights Project on behalf of American Gateways and Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center. The United States Department of Justice has also sued the state to stop the bill’s implementation.

SB 4 is the latest in a long line of policy failures made in service to Operation Lone Star, Texas’s multibillion-dollar border scheme. Texas has seized a public park from local officials in Eagle Pass, staged a “war zone” backdrop for social media videos along the river banks using concertina wire and a heavy police and military presence, and blocked federal Border Patrol agents from entering the park, setting off a standoff with the federal government that has continued despite a Supreme Court order reinstating federal officials’ access to the border. The new law is poised to make a bad situation worse by creating a new class of state-level “illegal entry” crimes punishable by deportation that will target Black and brown Texans regardless of their immigration status.

Governor Abbott signed SB 4 into law on December 18, 2023. Without intervention, it will go into effect on March 5, 2024.

“Our city of Eagle Pass borders Piedras Negras, Mexico, and it is not invaded by migrants; it is invaded by the military,” said Pastor Julio Vasquez of Iglesia Luterana San Lucas in Eagle Pass. “Our parks meant to be for kids, games, and families are currently closed because of the military. We should all unite so our country continues to be great—great with immigrants.”

“SB 4’s unconstitutional power grab represents not a response to an uncontrollable sudden invasion of the border but the culmination of a long-term project by this state and this governor to harden our border with Mexico through systemic and literal violence, even if that means upending the tranquility of border communities against their very will,” said Aron Thorn of Texas Civil Rights Project, one of the plaintiffs in the case.

“If SB 4 stands, it would set a dangerous precedent of allowing individual states to resist any federal laws they don’t agree with, which will only create more chaos and disorder, and will prevent the hope of ever actually solving some of our biggest problems,” said Kristin Etter of Texas Immigration Law Council.

“SB 4 allows local and state law enforcement to put our parents, friends, neighbors, coworkers, classmates, and loved ones on a new pathway to deportation,” said Elyse McMahon on behalf of American Gateways and Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center, both plaintiffs in the case. “We are here to protect the people of Texas from the unconstitutional overreach of the State of Texas.”

“I am a person directly impacted by the SB 4 bill the governor wants to implement on March 5,” said a member of Mujeres Luchadoras who spoke at the press event and prefers not to be named.“This bill affects all of us who are in the process of receiving asylum, people with pending visas, and youth with DACA. We’re all at risk of deportation, and we’re calling on the judge to hear us.”