Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas has said that he anticipated challenges to Senate Bill 4. The Justice Department on Thursday threatened to sue Texas if it enforced a sweeping new law that would allow the state and local police to arrest migrants who enter the United States from Mexico without authorization, setting up the first significant legal showdown over federal immigration enforcement. Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas signed the measure , known as Senate Bill 4, this month in his most direct challenge yet to the Biden administration’s handling of immigration. Immigrant-rights groups and Hispanic organizations had opposed the legislation, arguing that it would violate the U.S. Constitution and encourage racial profiling. In a letter obtained by The New York Times, Brian M. Boynton, an assistant attorney general with the D.O.J., gave Mr. Abbott until next Wednesday to retract his intention to enforce the law, which takes effect in early March. Otherwise, he wrote, “the Department of Justice intends to bring a lawsuit to enforce the supremacy of federal law and to enjoin the operation of S.B. 4.” In the letter, which was addressed to Mr. Abbott, a third-term Republican, and Ken Paxton, the state attorney general, Mr. Boynton cited a 2012 U.S. Supreme Court case, Arizona v. United States, in which the court narrowly decided in favor of the power of the federal government to set immigration policy. “S.B. 4 therefore intrudes into a field that is occupied by the federal government and is pre-empted,” he wrote in the letter, which was first reported by The Houston Chronicle . “Indeed, the Supreme Court has confirmed that ‘the removal process’ must be ‘entrusted to the discretion of the federal government.’” More on U.S. Immigration In Texas: Gov. Greg Abbott signed a measure that allows the state’s law enforcement officials […]
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