Saying Republican Texas Governor Greg Abbot overstepped his authority, the US Department of Justice sued Texas over its recently passed SB4, a law that broadens state and local law enforcement officers’ and courts’ authority to enforce immigration law, Reuters reports.
The Texas version of Arizona’s overturned “show us your papers” law gives allows state, county and local law enforcement the ability to detain and question people they suspect of being undocumented migrants, and it empowers some state and local courts with the authority to adjudicate cases involving people who are in the country illegally, with the authority to order deportations, threaten to turn the individual over to federal authorities, or in some cases, imprison someone for up to 20 years. Constitutionally, the federal government handles international migration.