Three Texas judges are asking the Biden administration to intervene and try to block legislation in Texas that would give the state authority to arrest and deport illegal immigrants.

Governor Abbott, who was not immediately available Friday to comment, has pushed heavily for the legislation and said on X: “I look forward to signing Senate Bill 4, which creates penalties for illegal entry into Texas and authorizes the removal of illegal immigrants apprehended at the border.”

The legislation, as the Sun has reported, has created a national firestorm, with advocates saying it will finally give Texas authority to do what the federal government hasn’t accomplished on border security, and opponents saying they will sue if it goes into effect because they believe it’s unconstitutional for Texas to take immigration into its own hands. 

Now, three Texas judges are requesting that President Biden to “maintain and assert” his administration’s “authority over immigration enforcement and to prevent the inevitable tragedies from this legislation.” 

In a note on X about the “urgent letter” to the Biden administration, a Harris County judge, Lina Hidalgo, said the bill “turns local law enforcement into immigration enforcement, and our already overcrowded jails into immigrant detention facilities,” adding that the bill “threatens to upend” federal immigration law. 

“We urge you to intervene to stop this legislation from going into effect and to prevent Texas Governor Greg Abbott from violating the U.S. Constitution,” the judges, Ms. Hidalgo, Ricardo Samaniego of El Paso County, and Andy Brown of Travis County, write.

“In practice, SB 4 will allow — and sometimes require — judges across the entire state of Texas to deport people, even if they are in the process of seeking asylum,” the judges note. “Police officers, whose effectiveness depends on close ties with their local communities, will now be in charge of detaining immigrants for deportation.”  

The judges also express concern that the legislation will harm America’s relationship with Mexico, after Mexico’s government said it rejected the “anti-immigration measures that aim to stop the flow of migrants by criminalizing them.” 

“This legislation will result in the separation of families, discrimination and racial profiling,” Mexico’s foreign ministry said in a statement, adding that “Mexico categorically rejects any measure that allows state or local authorities to detain and return Mexican or foreign nationals to Mexican territory.”

The crux of the constitutional debate is over whether it’s legal for a state to enforce immigration standards or if, as decided in Arizona v. United States, immigration and deportation are within the federal government’s purview. 

“SB 4 is the latest attempt by Texas legislators to take federal immigration law into their own hands for personal political gain through hatemongering and intimidation,” a vice president at the National Immigration Law Center, Lisa Graybill, said. “Federal courts, including the Supreme Court, have consistently held that the federal government has the sole authority to regulate immigration policy.”

Yet, other experts have told the Sun that the measure is constitutional, because Texas has “plenary powers” over anyone within its borders. The federal government controls who is a U.S. citizen, but not much else. Governor Abbott has repeatedly said his actions are a direct result of the Biden administration’s failure to secure the border. 

Aside from California, Texas has the largest number of unauthorized migrants, with 1.6 million of such living illegally in the state, recent Pew Research data show. The most common country-of-birth for the migrants is Mexico, the researchers added.

The judges’ letter to Mr. Biden says that the U.S. needs immigrants. It says the 1.6 million unauthorized migrants in Texas pay $2.6 billion in federal taxes every year and work in jobs that are “supporting our bottom line.”