Joe Biden reacts and sues Texas over the law that allows the detention of migrants

The US government filed a lawsuit against Texas on Wednesday, deeming it ‘unconstitutional’ a law that criminalizes migrants who enter irregularly into that state bordering Mexico and allows their detention.

In December, the governor of Texas, Republican Greg Abbott, signed into law the so-called SB4 law, which establishes a criminal offense for those who enter Texas illegally from a foreign country and provides up to 20 years in prison for recurrence.

Under this regulation, which was supposed to come into force in March, authorities would have the power to detain migrants without documentation and judges would have the power to expel them.

But President Joe Biden immediately stepped up. As expected, the federal government, which regulates migration and manages borders, he decided to react in court.

In a statement, the Justice Department said it had filed “a lawsuit against the state of Texas challenging” the law in order to have SB4 declared “invalid.”

“It is clearly unconstitutional.”says Deputy Attorney General Vanita Gupta, quoted in the note.

The Constitution bars states from “passing immigration laws that interfere with the framework adopted by Congress,” he adds.

In the past, the Supreme Court confirmed that decisions regarding the expulsion of foreigners from the country affect “foreign relations and must be made with one voice”, recalls the Biden government.

After the legal action, the Mexican Foreign Ministry said in a statement that it “takes favorable note” of the Biden government’s initiative and recalled its condemnation of Texas immigration law.

Mexico expressed “its rejection of the implementation of this anti-immigration measure which aims to stop the flow of migrants, through their criminalization, promoting the separation of families, discrimination and racial profiling that violate human rights”, we read in the text.

Political struggle over migrants

The immigration crisis is causing strong tensions between Republicans and Democrats in the United States, who are currently engaged in arduous negotiations in Congress, where conservatives have made the approval of an aid package for Ukraine conditional on a tightening of the policy of blocking the ‘immigration.

The political struggle is tense as November’s presidential elections approach.

Former Republican President Donald Trump, Biden’s possible rival in that election, said that migrants “poison the blood” of the United States.

Both Abbott and Trump favor building a wall along the border with Mexico and expelling migrants en masse, many of them Latin Americans fleeing violence and poverty.

In December, US authorities intercepted about 10,000 migrants a day illegally crossing the border from Mexico, in what Republicans see as a humanitarian disaster.

Source: AFP