Biden for national solution
Supreme Court approves Texas immigration law
March 19, 2024, 10:55 p.m
A Texas law allows the detention and deportation of illegal migrants. While US President Biden is striving for a regulation at the federal level, the conservative-dominated Supreme Court is clearing the way for Texas to go it alone.
The US Supreme Court has approved the controversial immigration law in the state of Texas, which would allow police to arrest and deport migrants who entered the country illegally. Following the court’s decision, the law known as Senate Bill 4 (“SB 4”) can now go into effect. The Supreme Court, which has a conservative majority of six to three, ordered a temporary stay of the law earlier this month for review. This has now been overturned against the votes of the liberal judges. Liberal Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor said the decision “invites further chaos and a crisis in immigration enforcement.”
The US government under President Joe Biden had decidedly opposed SB 4 because the issue of immigration would be regulated at the federal level and not by individual states. The law was “harmful and unconstitutional,” the White House said in a statement. “We are against the Supreme Court’s decision in every respect.”
President Biden’s administration and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a supporter of Biden’s predecessor Donald Trump, have long been at odds over securing the U.S.-Mexico border. Abbott accuses the government in Washington of doing nothing to stop illegal border crossings.
Border policy as an election campaign issue
Border policy is a particularly contentious issue in the USA and is politically extremely sensitive for Biden. The opposition Republicans accuse the Democrat of allowing hundreds of thousands of foreigners into the country without hindrance and are stoking fears of an increase in crime and drug problems.
The White House, in turn, accuses the Republican Party of sabotaging attempts to find a bipartisan solution. The reason is apparently the rejection by Trump, who wants to take back the White House in the presidential election in November – and wants to use border policy in the election campaign.