"Let me say this once and for all, we will not accept deportations from the Texan government," Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said during a news conference. Under Texas’s Senate Bill 4, it is a crime to illegally cross into the state from Mexico. The legislation allows authorities to arrest illegal aliens and compel them to appear before a judge or magistrate who could order them to be removed from the U.S., with prison sentences up to 20 years for individuals who do not comply. Lopez Obrador said the law is draconian, dehumanizing, and unfair, while adding that Mexico would consider a diplomatic response. "We oppose this Draconian law, it is completely contrary to human rights, completely dehumanizing, anti-Christian, unjust, it violates the norms of human coexistence (and) not only international law, but even violates the Bible," he said. Gov. Greg Abbott signed the bill into law last November, a move that almost immediately was met with legal challenges. In February, a federal judge blocked the new law from taking effect. U.S. District Judge David Ezra sided with the Biden administration, which argued that SB4 interferes with the federal government’s powers to enforce immigration laws and the ability for migrants to apply for asylum. The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals paused Ezra’s ruling blocking SB4 and on March 19 the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the decision by the appeals court. However, just hours later the 5th Circuit reversed its earlier ruling and is now hearing arguments on whether to continue blocking the law. Aaron Nielson, a lawyer for Texas, stated in opening remarks cited by Reuters that SB4 mirrors federal immigration law and that the court was wrong to issue a decision arguing that it would interfere with federal enforcement. “Texas has a right to defend itself,” Nielson told the court. Adam Isacson, an analyst with the Washington Office on Latin America, a research and advocacy group, says the legal battle could be used as leverage by the Biden administration to extract more concessions from Mexico. “It underlines that the Biden and López Obrador administrations have a common adversary in Texas and in Trump-world,” Isacson wrote in an email to the LA Times. “For the Biden administration, it could mean a bit more leverage. They can tell their Mexican counterparts, ‘We’re the only thing standing between you and people who would carry out policies like S.B. 4, so we need you to cooperate on our priorities.’”The government of Mexico says it will not accept migrants subject to deportation under a Texas law that gives state authorities the power to arrest individuals who illegally enter the U.S. through the southern border.
