As lawmakers in Texas prepare for a new legislative session in which border security will once again be one of the main points of attention, a controversial measure connected to immigration enforcement, signed back in 2015 by Governor Greg Abbott, is being challenged in federal court.
A three-judge panel of the US Circuit Court of Appeals was set to hear arguments on Wednesday over the implementation or otherwise of a provision that was part of a sweeping bill regarding border security, which was passed by lawmakers in the midst of the 84th legislature. The provision makes anyone giving shelter or aid to an undocumented immigrant, or encourages them to enter the US, into a criminal.
House Bill 11, which included the provision, came into effect in September 2015 but the harboring provision was challenged almost immediately, in January 2016, by the civil rights group known as the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF). The group filed a lawsuit against Abbott, as well as the Texas Public Safety Commission and Steve McCraw, the director of the Texas Department of Public Safety. MALDEF claims that the provision violates the US Constitution’s Supremacy Clause, which gives the responsibility for immigration enforcement only to the federal government.
The provision was blocked from being enacted by Texas in April 2016, by US District Judge, David Alan Ezra until the case had been through the judicial process and received a final ruling.