The Republican governor of Texas signed a bill on Monday that would allow state police to arrest and deport migrants who cross illegally into the United States from Mexico.
The move by Governor Greg Abbott sets up a potential legal clash with the federal government, which generally sets and enforces immigration laws.
Abbott, speaking at a live-streamed signing ceremony in Brownsville on the US-Mexico border, accused President Joe Biden of doing “nothing to halt illegal immigration.” “Joe Biden’s deliberate inaction has decimated America,” Abbott said.
The Texas governor claimed that some eight million people have crossed the border illegally since Biden, a Democrat, took office in January 2021. Abbott defended the new law as constitutional, saying Texas had been left to “fend for itself.”
He said the bill passed by the Republican-majority Texas state legislature last month was needed to “stop the tidal wave of illegal entry into Texas.”
Abbott said the bill, known as SB4, makes it a “criminal offense for illegal entry into Texas from a foreign nation. “For repeat offenders it creates the offense of illegal reentry with a potential prison sentence term of up to 20 years,” he said.
The bill also “provides a mechanism to order an illegal immigrant to return to the foreign nation from which they entered,” he said.
The law, which is expected to be challenged in court by the Biden administration and civil liberties groups, is to go into force in March and is the latest flashpoint between the Republican governor and the federal authorities.
