THIS is gonna be interesting…..
Texas is a State….
NOT a Country….
Immigration is the job of the Federal Government…..
This IS another step it seems in Texas moving to seriously seperate itself from the other 49 states…….
Texas would probably find away for Federal taxpayer money to fund this….
This of course is a political throw down at President Biden and Congress also actually….
A Texas bill creating a state-run “border protection unit” has been brought back to life.
H.B. 20 would create a state immigration unit to “arrest, apprehend or detain persons crossing the Texas-Mexico border unlawfully” — something that has traditionally been the preserve of the federal government.
The state-level push comes alongside a broader Republican attack on what they characterize as President Biden’s “open borders policy.”
While the administration has heavily promoted its new enforcement measures at the border, and the federal Border Patrol reports that encounters with migrants are a quarter below last year, Republicans have described the situation at the border in apocalyptic terms.
“The brutal reality of Biden’s immigration agenda should shock the conscience of every American,” Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton wrote in a statement on Wednesday….
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On Thursday, the House of Representatives voted to pass H.B. 2, a sweeping bill that, among a great deal else, makes asylum applications more stringent, restarts construction of the Trump-era border wall and reopens immigration prisons closed by the Biden administration.
Another clause of the national bill would see unaccompanied minors “safely and expeditiously returned to their country of origin.”
But with that bill facing near-certain death in the Senate and a Biden veto, Texas is going it alone with H.B. 20, in a move that risks confrontation with the federal government should it pass…
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The Texas bill faces a narrow window to passage. Democrats nearly scuttled it on procedural grounds last week, but Republicans successfully resurrected it this week, The Texas Tribune reported.
The new unit would be authorized to act only in the overwhelmingly Hispanic counties of the Texas-Mexico border, where they would be allowed “to arrest, apprehend, or detain persons unlawfully crossing the Texas-Mexico border deter persons attempting to cross the border unlawfully.”…
The bill would also give the state new legal powers that prosecutors could use against migrants. It sets up a Texas-only version of Title 42. Also, it makes it a felony crime for anyone to “knowingly” trespass on private land while entering the state — which effectively criminalizes entering the state outside a port of entry, according to the Texas Civil Rights Project.
This makes an offense that used to be a misdemeanor into a felony on par with kidnapping.
Bill sponsor state Rep. Matt Schaefer (R) told an Austin FOX affiliate that the state needs H.B. 20 to provide an additional workforce to replace the Texas National Guard units currently at the border under Gov. Greg Abbott’s (R) Operation Lone Star….
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Schaefer conceded that “in some ways, we’re in uncharted territory” concerning the relationship between the Texas and state governments. The Constitution, after all, gives primary responsibility for international borders to the federal government….