For going on three years, Texas Governor Greg Abbott has relentlessly escalated a border battle against migrants and refugees under the banner of Operation Lone Star. Both a reactionary opportunist and a savvy lawyer, Texas’ top executive has used his enterprise to test the boundaries between state and federal authority and to try to free Texas from strictures imposed by the U.S. Supreme Court. Abbott has distorted the state’s criminal trespass statute to target unauthorized migrants; he’s declared an “invasion” of Texas by Mexican cartels; he’s sent asylum-seekers by the busload to other American states; he’s empowered the Texas National Guard and state troopers to apprehend immigrants and return them to the U.S.-Mexico border; he’s built a wall; and he’s deployed dangerous river buoys in the Rio Grande.
Now, with Senate Bill 4, the Texas Legislature has gifted Abbott the most extreme weapon in his anti-Federalist arsenal yet—one that could reshape immigration enforcement nationwide.
SB 4, passed in November during a dysfunctional fourth special legislative session, grants unprecedented powers to local and state police, judges, and magistrates. For starters, the bill makes it a state misdemeanor crime for a non-U.S. citizen to improperly enter Texas from another country—say, by rafting across the Rio Grande from Mexico. To avoid prosecution, alleged crossers may agree to a judicial order to return to the country they came from; if prosecuted, they face up to six months in jail, after which they’ll be subject to an identical order anyway. Refusal to comply with these state deportation orders constitutes a separate felony offense.
