La Unión Del Pueblo Entero (LUPE), a Rio Grande Valley-based immigration advocacy organization, has filed a lawsuit against the state of Texas over SB4, the controversial law that would allow state and local law enforcement agencies to arrest those suspected of crossing into Texas illegally.
The lawsuit, joined by four Texas residents, is the first to challenge SB4 on behalf of individuals personally affected by the law. It's also the first to raise the claim that SB4 violates constitutional rights against unreasonable searches and seizures, as well as cruel and unusual punishments — rights protected by the Fourth and Eighth amendments.
The National Immigration Law Center (NILC) said that the four Texas residents it's representing in the suit, named only as “Doe Plaintiffs,” are in the country under “available pathways or pending immigration applications” and are considered to be legally present in the U.S. by the federal government.
However, if SB4 were implemented, the State of Texas would be allowed to remove such individuals if they also ever re-entered the state at any time in the past.
Tania Chavez, executive director for LUPE, said this is exactly the situation of the individuals represented in the lawsuit.
“In this particular lawsuit, we're actually including community members who will be affected by this law even though they already have legal status in the country,” she said. “The fact that they were courageous enough to stand up against the State of Texas and this anti-immigrant legislation shows how resilient the community is.”
One of the plaintiffs named Mary Doe in the filing is a native of El Salvador who has lived in the U.S. for more than 30 years and has permission from the federal government to be in the country. But she could still be prosecuted and removed from the U.S. in Texas under SB4.
“I am a Texan and the United States is my home,” said Mary Doe in a statement released by NILC. “My kids, my parents, and my whole life are here. I have permission to work, and I work hard, I pay taxes, and I am proud of my job as a government employee. This is what immigrants do, they work hard and contribute to the country and raise their children to do the same. I am standing up to fight this law because what Texas is doing is wrong. If I were removed from my home and sent away to a country I barely know, it would be devastating not just for me, but for everyone in America who my life is connected to.”
However, Chavez said the law is set to affect many more lives than those of the named plaintiffs — some of LUPE’s 8,000 members find themselves in similar situations.
“A certain portion of our local members who currently have legal status today also may have reentries in the past,” she explained. “They will now be subject to criminalization under SB4 because the law will be retroactive.”
Gov. Greg Abbott signed SB4 into law in December and said that “the goal of Senate Bill 4 is to stop the tidal wave of illegal entry into Texas” as he criticized the Biden administration on border security enforcement.
“Biden’s deliberate inaction has left Texas to fend for itself,” he added at the bill signing in the Rio Grande Valley.
Kica Matos, president of NILC, called SB4 “a shameless political ploy” and a “racist, immoral, and illegal law.”
The lawsuit named Abbott, Attorney General Ken Paxton, and Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) Director Steven McCraw as defendants, which Matos said are involved in “yet another attempt to take federal immigration law into their own hands for personal political gain, at the expense of Texas families and communities.”
LUPE is represented as a plaintiff in the suit by the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF), and it claimed SB4 will interfere with its ability to serve its legal service clients, which the filing said are mostly “non-detained non-U.S. citizens seeking asylum.”
The lawsuit added that LUPE’s legal service clients would “not be able to appear for their immigration case appointments at LUPE or appear for interviews or hearings with federal immigration authorities,” claiming that SB4 would “obstruct LUPE’s access to its clients” and “interfere with its ability to provide effective legal representation.”
Thomas A. Saenz, MALDEF president and general counsel, said that SB4 represents one of the most radical state laws to address immigration.
“SB4 is the most extreme anti-immigrant state law in the last 50 years, bar none,” he added. “Not only does the law seek to establish the state’s own deportation and removal apparatus using untrained police officers and judges, in doing so, SB4 seeks to impose the wholly outdated criminal punishment of banishment. As much as its leaders may wish otherwise, Texas remains one state of 50 in a modern United States, so SB4 must fall.”
A temporary pause on the implementation of SB4 set by the Supreme Court, pending separate litigation with the Department of Justice, expires on Monday.
