NEWS: Congressman Greg Casar Condemns Greg Abbott’s Newest Anti-Immigrant Policies; Asks DOJ to Intervene

WASHINGTON – Today, Congressman Greg Casar (D-Texas) releases the following statement in response to Texas Governor Greg Abbott planning to sign new anti-immigrant policies into law, including an additional billion dollars of taxpayer funding for border barriers and a new “Show Me Your Papers” law.  

Casar joins Joaquin Castro (D-Texas), Texas Democrats, and members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus in calling on the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) to block the new “Show Me Your Papers” law before it takes effect. 

“Instead of working to improve public schools, or health care, or the economy, Abbott puts all his energy — and billions of dollars — into these extreme and unconstitutional anti-immigrant laws,” said Congressman Greg Casar (D-Texas). “Asking local police to hunt down Texans who look like immigrants doesn’t make us more safe: in fact, it takes police away from investigating real crime. The federal government must block these unconstitutional anti-immigrant policies before they take effect.”

Casar has spoken directly with United States Attorney General Merrick Garland about this unconstitutional and anti-immigrant law.

“This bill is set to be the most extreme anti-immigrant state bill in the United States; it is clearly preempted by federal law and when it goes into effect will likely result in racial profiling, significant due process violations, and unlawful arrests of citizens, lawful permanent residents, and others,” the lawmakers wrote. “In practice, this would place people with authorization to be in the United States, even United States citizens, at risk of being forced to leave Texas…The process of removing people from the United States is constitutionally a federal process and excluding federal authorities, including Department of Homeland Security agents trained in immigration law and federal judges trained to enforce it, will obstruct asylum cases, result in erroneous determinations, and put many people in danger. SB 4 is an unlawful attempt to engage in federal immigration enforcement. This law will also interfere with federal efforts to create a safe, humane, and orderly system at the border.” 

The letter is signed by Texas Reps. Joaquin Castro (TX-20), Veronica Escobar (TX-16), Colin Allred (TX-32), Vicente Gonzalez (TX-34), Sylvia Garcia (TX-29), Al Green (TX-09), Lizzie Fletcher (TX-07), Sheila Jackson Lee (TX-18), Lloyd Doggett (TX-37), Marc Veasey (TX-33), Greg Casar (TX-35), and Jasmine Crockett (TX-30), as well as Congressional Hispanic Caucus Chairwoman Nanette Diaz Barragán (CA-44), Jesús “Chuy” García (IL-04), Luis Correa (CA-46), Linda Sánchez (CA-38), Juan Vargas (CA-52), Adriano Espaillat (NY-13), Grace Napolitano (CA-31), Norma Torres (CA-35), and Delia Ramirez (IL-03).

The full letter is available here.

Background on New Border Wall Taxpayer Dollars (SB3/HB3): 

• SB 3 allocates an additional $1.54 billion to the Office of the Governor to use at his discretion for border barriers and infrastructure, namely a border wall and/or river buoys. The Governor’s enforcement operation has not proven to make communities safer.
  • Of the $1.54 billion, $40 million must be transferred to the Department of Public Safety for OLS overtime payments and for increased DPS presence in Colony Ridge, based on a thoroughly debunked hoax. 
• SB 3 subsidizes the ever-growing, dangerous, and cruel Operation Lone Star, which has already eaten up an estimated $10 billion in state funding in the two years since its creation. The bloated costs for this program continue rising, and funding it pulls money away from other much-needed investments in healthcare, education, and the Texas grid. Abbott isn’t just wasting taxpayer dollars on the appropriations side–his recent truck inspections policy cost over $1.9 billion since September. 
• The bill text and other documents are available here.

Background on New “Show Me Your Papers” Law (SB4/HB4):

• SB 4 creates a state version of the federal illegal entry offense, in the hopes that state and local law enforcement will arrest, detain, and ultimately deport people and those assumed to be migrants.
• SB 4 contains a myriad of constitutional problems. Notably, it requires two state-level entities–the arresting officer and the magistrate–to make status determinations, a power reserved for the federal government alone. 
• The process for seeking asylum under SB 4 is unclear, even to the bill’s authors. Under federal law, a person has a right to present themselves on an asylum claim at any location, not just at a point of entry. Federal authorities then interview them to determine eligibility. SB 4 would require that this same person be arrested, forced through a state criminal proceeding, and either jailed or deported before they would have the opportunity to talk with a federal immigration officer.  
• The bill text and other documents are available here.

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Congressman Greg Casar represents Texas’s 35th Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives, which runs down I-35 from East Austin to Hays County to the West Side of San Antonio.  A labor organizer and son of Mexican immigrants, Casar serves as the Whip of the Congressional Progressive Caucus for the 118th Congress. He also serves on the Committee on Oversight and Accountability and the Committee on Agriculture.