Washington, D.C. – Today, Chairman Jodey Arrington (TX-19) issued the following statement in response to U.S. District Judge David Ezra issuing a preliminary injunction to block a new Texas law that makes illegally crossing the southern border a state crime. The ruling comes just 5 days before the law, coming from Texas’ SB 4, would take effect.
“This ruling by the Federal District Judge in Austin is disappointing, but not surprising. It is clear to me and the majority of Americans that what’s happening at our southern border is ‘an actual invasion’ or ‘imminent danger’ per the US Constitution, Article 1 Section 10.
I led 45 of my colleagues in an Amicus Brief supporting SB 4 and Texas’ right of self-defense.
We’ll see Biden’s DOJ in the 5th circuit.”
Background:
On December 18, 2023, Governor Abbott signed into state law Senate Bill 4, which was passed by the Texas legislature in a special session. Senate Bill 4 criminalizes illegal entry and reentry into the State from a foreign nation and authorizes state judicial officers to order offenders to return to the nation from which they illegally entered.
On January 3, 2024, the DOJ filed suit in the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas to enjoin the Texas bill from taking effect in early March. The DOJ argues that the legislation is unconstitutional and that it is preempted by federal law.
On February 13th, Chairman Arrington filed an amicus brief with 45 cosigners in support of Texas in the lawsuit U.S. v. Texas. The main arguments of the brief include:
Texas and every other state in the Union have an inherent right to self-defense explicitly declared in Article I, Section 10 of the Constitution.
Texas’s right to repel an invasion in nonjusticiable, meaning that Texas may exercise its sovereign right to self-defense whenever it may deem necessary through the state legislature.
General immigration regulations listed in the Immigration and Nationality Act cannot constrain Texas’s constitutional power to repel an invasion.
