Texas House votes to allow local police to arrest migrants

A bill that would allow local police to arrest migrants in Texas passed the state’s House of Representatives Thursday.

The bill will now head to the state Senate.

The bill also would make it a criminal offense for someone who is not a U.S. citizen or national to enter the state anywhere besides a lawful port of entry.

It would allow law enforcement officers to return anyone violating that law to the country they came from.

House passage of the bill reflects the hard line the Texas Legislature is taking on immigration as a steady wave of migrants comes to the border.

Just two days before, Texas sued the Biden administration seeking to stop federal agents from cutting razor wire on the border.

The Department of Justice sued Texas in July to compel Gov. Greg Abbott (R) to remove a barrier system in the Rio Grande designed to stop migrants from entering the U.S. 

“We allege that Texas has flouted federal law by installing a barrier in the Rio Grande without obtaining the required federal authorization,” Associate Attorney General Vanita Gupta said in a statement announcing the lawsuit.

Mexican officials made complaints against the use of the barriers in an official letter to the U.S. government in July. Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador also criticized border control efforts by Texas as “inhumane” in the wake of two bodies found in the Rio Grande in early August.

“No one should be treated like this,” López Obrador said, according to CNN. “That kind of treatment does not come from a good person; only by being good can we be happy …”