News/Commentary

Texas detains thousands as Gov Abbott expands powers to arrest, imprison, possibly deport migrants

December 28, 2023 | | Print Article

Since 2021, Texas police have reportedly arrested nearly 10,000 migrants/illegal aliens under the state’s “arrest and jail” operation.

The policy has worked thanks to cooperation from landowners who live along the border. According to the Associated Press, they’ve signed agreements authorizing the state to arrest migrants/illegals for trespassing on their property.

The AP further notes that Texas Gov. Greg Abbott had predicted that these arrests would lead to a slowdown in border crossings.

“When people start learning about this, they’re going to stop coming across the Texas border,” he told Fox News in July 2021.

At the time, Texas-Mexico border crossings had reached 1.2 million per year. Sadly, those numbers have only grown worse since.

“They’re still coming through here,” Maverick County Sheriff Tom Schmerber bluntly explained to the AP.

And so to up the ante, Abbott has recently expanded the “arrest and jail” operation.

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“Starting in March, Texas will allow police to arrest migrants who enter the state illegally and give local judges the authority to order them out of the country,” the AP notes.

The law is considered to be “one of the strictest state immigration laws in modern U.S. history.”

The law is comprised of several smaller bills also packaged together.

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One bill “creates a mandatory ten-year minimum prison sentence for smuggling of persons and continuous smuggling of persons,” according to a press release from Abbott’s office.

Another bill “creates a criminal offense for illegal entry into this state from a foreign nation.”

“The law cracks down on repeated attempts to enter Texas by creating the offense of illegal reentry and penalizes offenders with up to 20 years in prison. It also provides the mechanism to order an offender to return to the foreign nation from which the person entered or attempted to enter this state,” the press release reads.

“The law provides civil immunity and indemnification for local and state government officials, employees, and contractors for lawsuits resulting from the enforcement of these provisions,” it continues.

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The fact that the new laws allow migrants/illegal aliens to be deported back to their home country is a major selling point.

Regarding the trespassing arrests, the AP admits it’s “unknown how many of those arrested on the border for trespassing remain in the U.S., were deported, were allowed to stay to seek asylum, or had their cases dismissed.”

However, the AP also points to the words of Kristen Etter, an attorney whose firm has represented over 3,000 illegals, the majority of whom have reportedly been allowed to stay in the U.S. and seek asylum.

Speaking with the AP, she claimed the trespassing arrests have only incentivized more illegal migration because the illegals WANT to be arrested and entered into the U.S. immigration system.

“If anything, rather than being a deterrent, it is attracting more people,” she said.

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The Texas Department of Public Safety, the agency responsible for the arrests, has claimed otherwise, arguing that the trespassing arrests have stopped gang members, human traffickers, and sex offenders from entering the U.S.

“Had we not been there, all of it likely would have crossed into the country unimpeded. The state of Texas is working to send a message to those considering crossing into the country illegally to think again,” DPS spokesperson Ericka Miller said.

State Rep. David Spiller, the author of the latest arrest law, somewhat concurs. He told the AP that border crossings would likely be far worse without the trespassing arrests.

However, he also admitted that these cases “add to prosecutors’ workloads, depend on cooperation from landowners, and, even if defendants are convicted, the offense is not deportable under federal law,” as reported by the AP.

“We’re doing what we can, but we’re only slowing down that process. We haven’t stopped anybody,” he said to the AP.

Abbott reportedly suggested earlier this month that the trespassing arrests may be phased out once the new laws go into effect.

Vivek Saxena
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