As 2023 comes to a close, Texas caps off yet another tumultuous news cycle and leaves many of us scratching our heads in sheer awe of poorly framed and researched anti-immigrant policy.
The Lone Star State’s governor signed Senate Bill (SB) 4 into law on Dec. 18. This bill is crafted in a similar mold as Florida’s SB 1718 and its predecessor, Arizona’s SB 1070, and is just as divisive as it is poorly fashioned.
According to a report from NPR’s Dallas Affiliate, SB 4, which is scheduled to take effect in March 2024, seeks to make unauthorized border crossings into Texas a state crime. The bill also seeks to grant law enforcement the power to arrest people who are “suspected” of crossing the U.S.-Mexico border through Texan entry points without documentation. An initial conviction under this statute may result in a six-month jail term, while a second conviction may lead to a 20-year prison sentence.
This bill is especially concerning as the act of not having a proper documented status is a civil, not criminal, infraction.
As I write this column, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the ACLU of Texas and the Texas Civil Rights Project have initiated a lawsuit against the State of Texas. The suit claims that SB 4 would, as the Texas Tribune reports, “prevent immigrants from requesting asylum in the U.S., a right they have regardless of how they enter the country.”
In addition to the suit, neighboring states have issued a travel advisory out of concern that the bill may lead to increased racial profiling, and Mexican President Andres Manel Lopez Obrador has noted his government will challenge the law. Additionally, there continues to be tension with the federal government over the bill, especially in wake of previous discord over floating barricades along the Rio Grande earlier this year.
Despite the fixation of Mexican migrants, recent studies allude to a migrant demographic shift. According to the Pew Research Center, in November of 2022, 63% of migrants were from countries other than Mexico and the Central America’s Northern Triangle, as there has been a significant uptick in migration from Colombia, Cuba, Nicaragua, Peru and Venezuela. This problematizes the assumption that migrants who are removed can simply be left at the U.S.-Mexico border.
Many of these migrants, of course, are also asylum-seekers who are presented at ports of entry, as is part of the process. Folks deserve better than to be misidentified and treated as a monolithic community. This bill and its progenitors fail to reflect the complexity of our communities.
Oscar Rosales grew up in the Yakima Valley and works and resides in Seattle.
Read more of the Dec. 27, 2023–Jan. 2, 2024 issue.