Just days before Texas was about to enforce a law that would impose a crackdown on sanctuary cities, Chief U.S. District Court Judge Orlando Garcia put a temporary block on certain parts of that law. The parts they blocked were specific to immigration enforcement agents forcing local law enforcement to hold illegal immigrants for deportation.
Gov. Abbot's immigration crackdown
Another block was placed on a provision that limited local officials from making any changes that would restrict the state's enforcement. The argument that Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has made -- as well as other anti-immigration advocates -- is that sanctuary cities are "weak" on immigration, saying that they were "looking the other way" and not turning illegal immigrants over to deportation officials.
Gov. Abbott's law appeared to be inspired by the Trump administration's determination to target undocumented people as the President has not been able to pass his agenda through Congress. The effort inspired other Republican-led states to pass similar laws. The legal battle comes at the same time that Texas residents were hit by Hurricane Harvey, leaving millions of people to seek shelter and find their homes destroyed. It was assumed that there would be a lot of undocumented people who would be afraid to come forward fearing they would be deported.
Battling the law, anti-immigration mindset and Trump's agenda
The actions against sanctuary cities were also inspired by attorney general Jeff Sessions who threatened sanctuary cities saying they would strip them of funding.
Thus far, Congress has rejected Session's enforcement and had not included it in their initial budget for the beginning of the year. But with Congress returning to Washington in September, some Republicans who side with Trump's agenda are looking at following through.
Since Donald Trump began to campaign for the presidency, he targeted Mexican immigrants saying that Mexico was not sending their best and that immigrants were bringing crime and that they were rapists.
Since then, Trump has fueled anti-immigrant sentiment nationwide and had even pardoned a controversial former sheriff of Maricopa County, Arizona, Joe Arpaio. Arpaio was notorious for pulling over Latinos and forcing them to show their papers. Prior to the pardon, a federal court had ruled that what Arpaio did was unconstitutional and a violation of civil rights.
Judge Garcia said during his ruling that he was not against the state's legislation but only against the unconstitutionality of the state's effort. Gov. Abbott said they were going to appeal the decision immediately and show that the state's legislation is constitutional. Gov. Abbott's law also targeted elected officials who did not comply with his law, saying that they would be arrested and even removed from their elected positions if they did not comply.