Washington, D.C. — Last night, a federal court blocked implementation of nearly all of S.B. 4, the anti-immigrant Texas law that was due to go into effect on September 1. Tom Jawetz, vice president of immigration policy at the Center for American Progress, issued the following statement in response:
The federal court ruling affirms not only that the Texas law is a grossly unconstitutional overreach, but also that implementation would likely cause serious and irreparable harm to the residents of Texas. The court credited the declarations of Texas sheriffs and police chiefs who explained that by overriding their ability to effectively do their jobs the law would decrease public safety. That is consistent with the findings in a report issued earlier this year that counties with so-called sanctuary policies have lower crime rates, on average, than non-sanctuary counties. At a time when Texas residents need their government to be focused on how to rebuild portions of the state devastated by Hurricane Harvey—rebuilding work that will undoubtedly be done with the great help of immigrant communities—Gov. Greg Abbott and Attorney General Ken Paxton should abandon their plans to undermine those efforts and tear communities apart by making the state unwelcoming to communities of color and ripping protections away from nearly 125,000 DACA recipients in the state of Texas and nearly 800,000 nationwide.
CAP experts are available to speak on this topic. To coordinate, please contact Tanya Arditi at [email protected] or 202-741-6258.