When the Supreme Court, if only briefly, granted Texas new laws giving police broad authority to arrest people suspected of crossing the border illegally, Republican lawmakers were now trying to enact laws to force their says further into immigration police.
Within days Tuesday, another judge blocked the Texas rules again. The same day, Iowa passed a similar act.
Legislation in New Hampshire is on the verge of passing, allowing officers to charge those suspected of illegally entering the country from Canada.
After authorities accused a Venezuelan gentleman of beating medical student Laken Riley to death on the University of Georgia school, Georgia Republicans have proposed a plan that would require ready cities and counties to negotiate agreements to do some immigration-related inmate enforcement in order to support the federal government. Immigration authorities claim that the man entered the United States without permission in 2022. He has not applied for asylum, it is unclear.
On Wednesday, the state Senate honored Riley’s family. During the ceremony, her father, Jason Riley, blamed immigrant- protecting sanctuary policies in Athens, where University of Georgia is located, for his daughter’s death and urged Gov. In order to defend a number of escalating measures along the border, Brian Kemp declares an “invasion,” using the argument made by Texas. A Texas federal judge rebuffed those accusations last month and stifled the state’s new arrest law.
She lost her life to a man with a bad heart. He was in this country and in this state illegally”, Jason Riley said. Every senator in this chamber should be guided by my advice to protect people from this illegal invasion.
Meanwhile, it’s not yet clear whether Republican-controlled states, many of which are pushing various bills and sending their national guard members to the border, will support the Texas-style bill, especially if another court decision favors it. Oklahoma is n’t holding back; GOP House and Senate leaders voted in favor of a Texas-style anti-immigration law, with House Speaker Charles McCall announcing plans on Wednesday to immediately introduce a measure that amounted to a test of the waters.
The Biden administration is suing to stop the Texas measure, alleging that it is a flagrant violation of federal law that would stifle immigration law and wreak havoc on international relations.
Legislators in Tennessee are nearing the finish line on a proposal that mandates that law enforcement agencies contact federal immigration authorities if they discover people are in the country illegally. The Tennessee House and Senate speakers opened up to considering a similar policy for the brief time Texas had the all-clear to enforce its law on Tuesday.
” We are keeping tabs on the situation in Texas as governor.” Abbott works to defend his state, according to House Speaker Cameron Sexton.
These kinds of immigration policies are typically motivated by political motives, according to Muzaffar Chishti, a senior fellow at the Migration Policy Institute, and come with serious difficulties for resource-strapped law enforcement organizations that lack immigration expertise.
” It is a headache operationally to train a bunch of state officers in a field of enforcement where they have no background and no training,” Chishti said.
Under Iowa’s bill, entering the state after previously being denied entry to the U. S. would become an aggravated misdemeanor, or a felony under some circumstances, including during an arrest for a different felony.
Republican Rep. Steven Holt remarked,” States can and must act, and the federal government has abdicated its responsibilities.”
According to Democratic Representative Sami Scheetz, immigration is a federal government’s legal right.
The approach presented in this bill misses the essence of what it truly means to address this issue with compassion, wisdom, and effectiveness, according to Scheetz.” Illegal immigration is a serious problem that requires action.
The Republican governor is awaiting the bill. July 1 would be the day Kim Reynolds signed.
New Hampshire’s border bill dealing with Canada, meanwhile, would follow only 21 apprehensions in the state between October 2022 and December 2023, even as the U. S. Customs and Border Protection enforcement area that includes New Hampshire, New York, Vermont and Maine has seen a dramatic increase in illegal border activity since 2021.
The trespassing bill was passed last month in the Republican-dominated New Hampshire Senate. Republicans have a slimmer House majority, but the bill’s sponsor, Senate President Jeb Bradley, expects it to pass.
The former U.S. representative said he believes courts are enacting legislation like his, which bodes well for legislation like his, even with the Texas law once more being put on hold.
” The magnitude of the problem has gotten significantly worse”, Bradley said Wednesday. ” We ca n’t wait for Congress”.
Maryland is one of the Democratic-led states that is working on legislation to grant people the right to purchase health insurance through the state’s health care exchange, regardless of their immigration status.
A bill is advancing to limit the time homeless people can stay in emergency state shelters in Massachusetts, which has struggled to find shelter for thousands of migrants who have poured into the state. This would add three more months for those employed or enrolled in job training programs.
Earlier this month, Arizona Democratic Gov. A bill based on the Texas law was vetoed by Katie Hobbs. A similar bill has been promised to Hobbs and will be passed by Republican lawmakers since then.
Legislators in Arizona are considering a measure that would require local governments that receive state funding for welfare programs to use a federal employment verification database to verify whether recipients are in the country legally and remove those who are n’t from the program. It would go to voters for approval and, thus, bypass a potential Hobbs veto.
The most significant state attempt to enact immigration laws in Texas since Arizona made more than a decade ago, key provisions of which were overturned by the Supreme Court, are considered by opponents to be the most dramatic attempts to do so. That law, which opponents frequently refer to as the” show me your papers” bill, would have allowed police to make arrests for people who had violated federal immigration laws.
Georgia has an additional bill that would punish cities and counties that Republicans claim are using so-called sanctuary policies to illegally harbor immigrants who are in the country without permission, cutting off most state aid to the local government and removing elected officials from office.
Florida has already passed legislation to lengthen the sentences for illegal immigrants who have been found guilty of driving without a license or committing felonies.
Additionally, Tennessee is considering whether to permit judges to sentence someone who is a citizen of the country to life without the right to retribution for a violent crime committed with a deadly weapon or on school property. Another Tennessee proposal would make it a misdemeanor to transport someone who is in the country illegally into the state knowingly or recklessly.
When the Supreme Court’s temporary ruling down on Tuesday, shocking the group, was being held for an advocacy day at Tennessee’s Capitol. Lisa Sherman Luna, the Tennessee Immigrant &, Refugee Rights Coalition’s executive director, said the Texas law sets a “horrifying precedent” for communities and the country.
How “unified” will our states be when they each have laws governing who can call them home? Luna said.
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Jeff Amy in Atlanta, Holly Ramer in Concord, New Hampshire, Sean Murphy in Oklahoma City, Brendan Farrington in Tallahassee, Florida, Brian Witte in Annapolis, Maryland, Steve Karnowski in Minneapolis, Steve LeBlanc in Boston, Jacques Billeaud in Phoenix, and Scott McFetridge in Des Moines, Iowa, contributed to this report.
