(COLUMBUS, Ohio) — Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost is leading a coalition of 22 attorneys general in urging a U.S. Appeals Court to uphold Texas’ right to enforce a state immigration law amid a challenge by the federal government.
“States have a right to enforce their own laws – especially when federal inaction leads to a crisis like the one at the Southern border,” Yost said. “Ohioans shouldn’t have to pay the price for failed immigration policies.”
In an amicus brief filed Wednesday in United States v. Texas, the attorneys general take exception with a recent decision by a U.S. District Court blocking a Texas law that makes illegal immigration a state crime and authorizes Texas courts to deport those who cross the border illegally.
The Biden administration has challenged the law, asserting that it interferes with federal immigration law and, therefore, is unconstitutional.
The attorneys general argue otherwise, saying that states have a sovereign right to enact legislation that protects their residents’ safety. They urge the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit to reverse the lower court’s ruling.
The brief adds that states have a “paramount interest in ensuring that their validly enacted state laws are not improperly held unconstitutional under incorrect preemption analyses.”
Underscoring the urgency of the situation, the attorneys general cite December’s historic high of more than 302,000 encounters with migrants along the Southern border. The brief also notes how the crisis shows no signs of abating.
Yost and his counterparts argue that states “bear the brunt of the significant economic, health and public-safety issues generated by this mass migration crisis and the federal government’s failure to adequately enforce national immigration laws.”
Joining Yost in the amicus brief are the attorneys general from Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia and Wyoming.
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