The Louisiana Senate has signed off on a bill that would allow state police to arrest suspected illegal immigrants within the state.
The measure, modeled after a similar law in Texas, passed the GOP-led chamber on April 8 along party lines in a 28-11 vote. It now heads to the state House, also controlled by Republicans, for approval.
“Louisiana is one step closer to securing our border and addressing our illegal immigration crisis,” Republican state Sen. Valarie Hodges, the bill’s sponsor, said after the vote in a celebratory post on social media platform X.
But Democrats weren’t in the mood to celebrate.
“I don’t think this bill will solve anything,” Democrat state Sen. Royce Duplessis said.
Criticizing the bill’s verbiage, Mr. Duplessis said he felt the measure was “furthering this rhetoric, this narrative talking about other human beings who are leaving some of the worst conditions in some of the worst situations that all of us were very fortunate that we were not born in.” He added that he did not believe the law would make Louisianans safer.
Another provision in the bill authorizes the governor to negotiate an interstate compact with Texas and other interested states to assist in securing the southern border. The agreement would not increase the states’ authority in relation to the federal government but would allow for the sharing of law enforcement intelligence and resources relevant to border security.
Texas Court Battle
Texas Senate Bill 4 has been tied up in court as the Biden administration seeks its nullification, charging that it oversteps the state’s legal authority.Although the U.S. Supreme Court briefly allowed the law to take effect last month, its enforcement was short-lived. Within hours, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower court’s preliminary injunction, placing the law back on hold.
“We see no basis in the precedent of this court or the Supreme Court for concluding that the United States lacks a cognizable path for seeking to enjoin an allegedly preempted state law,” the majority wrote in its opinion.
“We bear in mind the United States has asserted that the laws at issue may disrupt or interfere with its core constitutional authority, including authority with regard to foreign policy and relations with other countries, as well as its authority over immigration.”
Touching on the court case in a recent interview with The Epoch Times’ Jan Jekielek, Louisiana’s Republican Gov. Jeff Landry said his administration is assisting Texas in the ongoing legal fight.
“Our attorney general joins them in all of the suits that they have,” Mr. Landry said. “We try to take the fight into the courts so that the courts can see the damage that is being done to states by the federal government when they don’t follow the law.”
He noted that there are unanswered questions about how the Texas law would be enforced if upheld by the courts.
“Do they turn [illegal immigrants] over to the feds? Then what happens when you turn them over to the Biden administration? Maybe they’ll just let them loose, and maybe they’ll send them to New York. I don’t know.”
The law’s constitutionality is still to be decided. But the governor contended that the Supreme Court’s allowance of its enforcement—if only temporary—was a good indicator of how the high court would answer that question.
“The court normally wouldn’t let a state arrest an individual without really having thought through some constitutional questions,” he reasoned.
Like Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, Mr. Landry blames the Biden administration for not only the crisis at the southern border but rising crime, which he says is a result of the president’s border policies.
“The sad part is that we can control this. We can seal the border. We can enforce our laws. Yet, the president just refuses to do so, and his secretary of Homeland Security refuses to do so as well.”
Mr. Landry’s office did not respond to a request for comment on Louisiana’s bill by publication time.
