By Steve Neavling
The Justice Department is threatening to sue Texas over a new state law that gives local and state police permission to arrest migrants who enter the U.S. from Mexico without authorization, The Washington Post reports.
In a letter to Texas Gov. Greg Abbott on Thursday, senior DOJ official Brian Boynton said the law, which was signed into law earlier this month, “violates the US Constitution.”
The law is set to go into effect in March.
Since the law “is unconstitutional and will disrupt the federal government’s operations, we request that Texas forbear in its enforcement,” Boynton wrote.
Boynton gave Texas until Wednesday to respond.
Federal courts have firmly maintained that immigration enforcement falls under the jurisdiction of the federal government, not state and local entities.
The law comes amid a record number of illegal border crossings. In each of the past two fiscal years, more than 2 million migrants illegally crossed the southwest border, according to CBP data.
