Enforcing Texas’ new immigration law may be challenging, even for authorities that support it

Gov. Greg Abbott poses with a framed letter from the Sheriffs Association of Texas at the Texas Capitol in Austin on Wednesday, March 20, 2024.Terrell County Sheriff Thaddeus Cleveland has 54 miles of U.S.-Mexico border in the West Texas jurisdiction he patrols, and five deputies.that will let authorities like him arrest people suspected of illegally entering the state from another country.

Many law enforcement officials support the measure. But major questions persist about how, when and if local authorities will enforce it. The Department of Public Safety, whose troopers patrol the border under Operation Lone Star, may be best equipped to enforce the law. However, DPS has said little beyond court filings about how it will do that. Spokespersons for the agency did not respond to inquiries this week sent by The Texas Tribune via email and phone.argue that S.B. 4 is unconstitutional because it interferes with federal immigration laws.

Spiller said he understood some sheriffs along the border may be limited in resources, but noted that the law permits an independent magistrate to determine the manner and means in which a person is sent back to Mexico if they voluntarily agree to return.“It’s that there’s no precedent,” said Rodolfo Rubio Salas, an immigration professor at El Colegio de Chihuahua in Ciudad Juárez.

It is not clear that officers and deputies across the state will take orders from elected officials since they have their own department’s chain of commands, lawyers and general orders to guide their service. “There's no way to get probable cause on the side of the road,” Hearn said. “The only way the second offense will ever be filed is someone who was arrested for something else — DWI, burglary, fighting in public, whatever. They go to jail, they're fingerprinted, and that biometric record makes it up to the federal government and then comes back down. … That's the only way you can make that case.

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