IRLI Defends Texas Transport Order

 

Shows court state may further immigration enforcement

 

WASHINGTON—The Immigration Reform Law Institute (IRLI) has filed a friend-of-the-court brief in a Texas federal district court opposing challenges by the Biden administration and private organizations to the executive order issued by Texas Governor Greg Abbott barring the transportation of aliens in the state by private groups.

 

The challengers protest that the administration often uses private charitable organizations to transport—into Texas and the rest of the United States—illegal aliens the administration has released, and that the governor’s transport order, because it disrupts this federal-government operation, is preempted under the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution. The Supremacy Clause provides that, where federal law and state law conflict, state law must give way.

 

As IRLI shows in its brief, however, the administration’s policy of using private groups to transport illegal aliens the administration has released is not a law passed by Congress. Indeed, the wholesale release of illegal aliens caught crossing the border that this policy furthers is flatly against federal law, which mandates the detention and removal of such aliens. By countering a policy contrary to federal law and the aims of Congress, Texas is advancing those aims, and aiding immigration law enforcement.

 

“The Supremacy Clause in no way protects Biden’s creation of a border crisis,” said Dale L. Wilcox, executive director and general counsel of IRLI. “That crisis is diametrically opposed to what Congress intended when it enacted laws, which Biden is continually breaking, meant to deter and control illegal entry into the United States. We hope the court sees this crucial point in preemption law, refuses to extend the protection of the Supremacy Clause to a rogue administration, and upholds Governor Abbott’s order.”

 

The cases are Unites States v. Texas and Annunciation House v. Abbott, No. 3:21-cv-173

(consolidated) (W.D. Tex.).

 

For additional information, contact: Brian Lonergan • 202-232-5590 • [email protected]