Developments
The Supreme Court extended until March 18 its stay on implementation of S.B. 4, Texas’s controversial new law that would empower state authorities to imprison or deport into Mexico people who cross the border irregularly, wherever in Texas those authorities encounter them. The law was to go into effect on March 5. A federal district judge hearing a challenge from the Biden administration and rights advocates blocked it on February 29. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals is hearing the Texas state government’s appeal, and—so far at least—the Supreme Court is keeping the law on hold while appeals continue.
- Uriel J. Garcia, William Melhado, “U.S. Supreme Court Continues Blocking Texas Immigration Law” (The Texas Tribune, March 12, 2024).
- Camilo Montoya-Galvez, “Alito Extends Supreme Court Pause of sb4, Texas Immigration Law That Would Allow State to Arrest Migrants” (CBS News, March 12, 2024).
The Mexican government plans to repatriate undocumented migrants by bus to all seven Central American countries, all the way to Panama. The route would begin in Tapachula, and Mexico has set aside 576 million pesos (about US$35 million) to pay for about 40 bus routes, which could take up to four days.
- Roxana Gonzalez, Repatriaran a Migrantes Hasta Panama en Autobus (El Sol de Mexico, Monday, March 11, 2024).
Between 2,500 and 3,000 military personnel are part of the federal support mission currently assigned to the U.S.-Mexico border, according to House testimony delivered yesterday by Rebecca Zimmerman, the Defense Department’s senior civilian official for Homeland Defense and Hemispheric Affairs. (This mission is separate from the Texas state government’s deployment of National Guardsmen on a mission involving much more frequent contact between soldiers and migrants.)
- Statement by S. Rebecca Zimmerman, Performing the Duties of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Homeland Defense and Hemispheric Affairs, Office of the Secretary of Defense, Before the 118th Congress Committee on Armed Services, U.S. House of Representatives (House of Representatives Committee on Armed Services, March 12, 2024).
Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas), newly re-elected Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-New York), and 24 other centrist Democratic representatives formed a “Democrats for Border Security Task Force” to oppose what they perceive to be their party’s leftward turn on immigration. Cuellar, who represents a border district in Laredo and the Rio Grande Valley, is the senior Democrat on the House Appropriations Homeland Security Subcommittee.
- Sahil Kapur, “‘Democrats for Border Security’ Task Force Seeks to Redefine the Party on Immigration” (NBC News, March 12, 2024).
Task Force members were among 14 Democrats who voted along with Republicans in favor of a March 12 resolution condemning President Joe Biden and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas for creating “the worst border security crisis in the Nation’s history.”
- Nick Robertson, “14 Democrats Vote for Resolution Denouncing Biden Border Policy” (The Hill, March 12, 2024).
CBP Officer Emanuel Isac Celedon pleaded guilty to taking bribes to allow into the country, through his lane at a Laredo port of entry, undocumented migrants and what he thought was a cocaine shipment.
- Phil Helsel, “Ex-Border Officer Pleads Guilty to Letting People Into U.S., Accepting Bribe” (NBC News, March 12, 2024).
Analyses and Feature Stories
The Intercept reported on DHS’s plans to install over 1,000 surveillance towers, many of them AI-equipped, along the United States’ land borders by 2034.
- Daniel Boguslaw, “U.S. Government Seeks “Unified Vision of Unauthorized Movement”” (The Intercept, March 12, 2024).
The Washington Post summarized five border-hardening or migration-restriction initiatives that Texas’s state government, under Republican Governor Greg Abbott, has sought to take: the “Operation Lone Star” buildup; S.B. 4; shutting Border Patrol out of a riverfront park in Eagle Pass; placing concertina wire along the river; and busing migrants to Democratic-governed cities.
- Ann E. Marimow, Arelis R. Hernandez, Maria Sacchetti, Nick Miroff, “How Texas Is Challenging the Biden Administration on Border Policy” (The Washington Post, March 12, 2024).
As none of Texas’s buses has arrived in Washington since November 2023, the District of Columbia city government is cutting back on its budget for accommodating newly arrived migrants.
- Antonio Olivo, “While Bused Migrants Overwhelm Other Cities, d.c. Scales Back Services” (The Washington Post, March 12, 2024).
New York Times non-fiction book critic Jennifer Szalai reviewed Soldiers and Kings, a new book about migrant smugglers’s lives and motivations from UCLA’s Jason De León.
- Jennifer Szalai, “A Rare Inside Look at Human Smuggling on the Border” (The New York Times, March 13, 2024).
On the Right
- Andrew Stanton, “Greg Abbott Celebrates Arresting Nearly 500,000 Migrants” (Newsweek, March 13, 2024).
- Anna Giaritelli, “Texas Tells Biden New Immigrant Processing Facility Is ‘an Expensive Band-Aid on a Gunshot Wound’” (The Washington Examiner, March 12, 2024).
- Simon Hankinson, “Biden’s Border Crisis Comes to the Suburbs” (Fox News, The Heritage Foundation, March 12, 2024).