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‘Chaotic, uncontrolled, open, free-for-all’: Voters describe crisis at southern border
Under Abbott’s new law, known as SB4, illegally entering the country into Texas will become a state crime. People arrested under the law will be able to choose whether to follow a judge’s orders to leave the country or be prosecuted and face either jail or a fine up to $2,000. Repeat offenders will then by charged with a felony.
At the signing in Brownsville, Gov. Abbott said: “[Law enforcement officers] are seeing with their own eyes people who are violating the law and now they’re going to have the ability to arrest them, prosecute them, make them subject to jail, make them subject to being sent back and make them subject to even greater penalties if they dare to come into Texas a second time.”
Texas Gov. Abbott empowers police to arrest illegal border crossers, as thousands more pour in
Texas governor Greg Abbott signed a new law Monday which gives law enforcement officers in the state the power to arrest anyone suspected of entering the country illegally.
The measure comes as photos showed thousands of migrants in Customs and Border Protection (CBP) custody at Eagle Pass in the state, after illegally making their way into the country Sunday night and Monday morning.
Texas also halted two train crossings from Mexico at El Paso and Eagle Pass as of 8 a.m. Monday, on routes where thousands of migrants have been hitching rides through northern Mexico to the border.
Under Abbott’s new law, known as SB4, illegally entering the country into Texas will become a state crime. People arrested under the law will be able to choose whether to follow a judge’s orders to leave the country or be prosecuted and face either jail or a fine up to $2,000. Repeat offenders will then by charged with a felony.
At the signing in Brownsville, Gov. Abbott said: “[Law enforcement officers] are seeing with their own eyes people who are violating the law and now they’re going to have the ability to arrest them, prosecute them, make them subject to jail, make them subject to being sent back and make them subject to even greater penalties if they dare to come into Texas a second time.”
The SB4 measures are set to come into effect in March, but are expected to face legal challenges before then, as immigration enforcement is a federal responsibility.
On Monday morning, photos taken by NewsNation showed a crowd of over 2,000 migrants gathered in neat columns at Eagle Pass waiting to be processed through the border.
They were just a handful of the tens of thousands who have arrived at the border this month, which has already seen about 30,000 more migrant encounters than the same period last month.
As of December 17, CBP had recorded 167,000 migrant encounters, compared to the 130,000 across the first 17 days of November, according to figures obtained by NewsNation.
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