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A migrant family from Peru walks on the Mexico side of the Rio Grande on May 12, 2023 after crossing the river shortly after Title 42 ended and and the National Guard turned them away in El Paso.
Credit:
Ivan Pierre Aguirre for The Texas Tribune
What happened in 2023: Gov. Greg Abbott urged lawmakers to approve several immigration enforcement proposals. Over one regular legislative session and four special sessions, Republicans passed bills that would enhance the punishment for human smuggling, fund $1.54 billion to continue building a border barrier and make it a state crime to illegally cross the Rio Grande from Mexico.
Under a new law, police who suspect that a person crossed the border illegally can arrest them and charge them with a Class B misdemeanor, which carries a punishment of up to six months in jail. Repeat offenders could face a second-degree felony with a punishment of two to 20 years in prison. The law allows a judge to drop the charges if a migrant agrees to return to Mexico.
That law has already drawn a legal challenge.
The legislation also allows $40 million to pay for state troopers to patrol Colony Ridge, a housing development near Houston that far-right publications claim is a magnet for undocumented immigrants. Federal officials, however, are suing the developer, accusing it of targeting Latino home buyers with predatory loans and false promises.
The new laws also allow the governor to use part of new border money to give grants to municipal governments that may incur increased costs while enforcing a new state immigration law.
What could happen in 2024: Some state Republican leaders have said they would welcome a legal fight with President Joe Biden’s administration that could reverse a U.S. Supreme Court landmark case: Arizona v U.S.
In 2012, a majority of the justices ruled that local police didn’t have the authority to arrest someone solely based on their immigration status because that responsibility falls to the federal government. That case stemmed from a 2010 Arizona law known as Senate Bill 1070, which made it a state crime for legal immigrants not to carry their immigration papers and required police officers to investigate the immigration status of any person they come into contact with.
Court battles over Texas’ new law are likely to play out throughout the year.
