Justice Department Sues Texas Over Abbott’s New Immigration Order, Kicking Off Legal Battle – By Claire Hansen (US News) / July 30 2021
The Justice Department sued Texas over the governor’s recent immigration order, which analysts had said raised a number of legal questions.
The Justice Department on Friday sued the state of Texas over Gov. Greg Abbott’s executive order prohibiting the transport of migrants, arguing that the order violates the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution and jeopardizes the health and safety of migrants, federal immigration personnel and communities at large.
The Justice Department is also asking a judge to immediately block the implementation of the order.
The lawsuit marks the start of one of the first major legal battles between the Biden administration and a Republican-led state over immigration. Under former President Donald Trump, legal fights over immigration policy between Democratic-led states and the federal government became so common as to be almost automatically expected with the introduction of new policies.
Abbott’s order, issued Wednesday, seeks to make it illegal to provide ground transportation to a group of migrants who have been detained by immigration officials for crossing the border illegally or who would have been expelled from the country under current border policy. The directive instructs law enforcement to stop any vehicle on “reasonable suspicion” of doing so – and also authorizes the state to impound vehicles. Abbott, a Republican, cites the COVID-19 pandemic and the potential spread of the virus as the basis of the order
