The Dallas Morning News: Austin Rep. Greg Casar leads progressive attack on Texas Republican border efforts

WASHINGTON — Rep. Greg Casar, D-Austin, helped lead progressives Wednesday in promoting federal legislation they say would bring more humanity to the country’s treatment of immigrants and push back on Republican efforts to have state and local authorities — or even everyday citizens — assume the role of immigration law enforcers.

“The path we’ve been on for decades of building more private prisons, putting more kids in cages, spending tens and hundreds of millions of dollars on border militarization, hasn’t worked,” Casar told reporters Wednesday.

Their proposal would end mandatory “no-bond” immigration detention, repeal laws allowing for criminal prosecution of unauthorized entry into the United States and limit the time in which federal authorities can initiate removal proceedings for civil violations.

It would provide an opportunity for those already deported to return and it would repeal laws used to justify having local authorities enforce immigration rules.

Casar said that would chip away at the foundation for Operation Lone Star, Gov. Greg Abbott’s multibillion dollar immigration-and-drugs dragnet at the southern border.

“This law would make it very clear that federal immigration officials should be doing immigration and our local police forces, state police forces should be focused on keeping us safe from violence,” Casar said. “They shouldn’t be chasing immigrants all around the state.”

Abbott’s office did not respond to a request for comment but in a news release last week said Operation Lone Star has turned back thousands of migrants seeking to enter the country illegally and resulted in more than 26,000 criminal arrests.

It said the operation continues to “fill the dangerous gaps” left by the Biden administration’s border policies.

Figures on arrests from the operation have included some individuals busted for low-level drug offenses unrelated to the border.

Casar said the progressives’ proposal also would shut down efforts such as Texas House Bill 20, which would create a Texas Border Protection Unit and allow citizen volunteers — after mandatory training — to make arrests.

Casar described that as “bounty hunter vigilante squads.”

The legislation he’s promoting won’t go anywhere this session with Republicans in control, but it represents a response from left-leaning Democrats to a slew of hardline GOP immigration proposals.

It also comes as the Biden administration has sought to stem the flow of migrants across the border with new policies that some have compared to those of President Donald Trump.

House Republicans made combatting illegal immigration a central part of their 2022 midterm campaign message but have struggled to get on the same page in writing bills since taking over the majority.

Nearly all Republicans in the Texas delegation backed a package of proposals focused on physical barriers and tougher enforcement. That plan includes a bill sponsored by Rep. Chip Roy, R-Austin, that would require Department of Homeland Security to turn away “all individuals at the border that cannot be detained for the pendency of their proceedings.”

Rep. Tony Gonzales, R-San Antonio, has vowed to fight Roy’s proposal.

“Bring unchristian anti-immigrant bills to the floor and I am a NO on the debt ceiling,” Gonzales tweeted Wednesday.