OPINION | This article contains the author's opinion.
A bill moving through the Louisiana legislature would empower local police to arrest suspected undocumented immigrants, modeled after Texas’ law.
Introduced by GOP Sen. Valarie Hodges, Senate Bill 388 would make reentering Louisiana after deportation a crime punishable by up to a year in prison and $4,000 fine.
“It’s something that I’ve been concerned about for several years,” Hodges said. “The fact that the federal government is not doing their job and they’re not protecting us.”
The bill authorizes an immigration compact with Texas due to security threats from the border crisis.
Hodges argues the federal government has failed to secure the border, allowing drug cartels, human trafficking and gang members to enter.
“You don’t just let anybody come inside your house, and that’s what we’re doing at the border. We’re saying anybody and everybody come on in, and we’re finding out that there’s drug cartels, human trafficking cartels, trafficking children, women and men and boys with labor and sex trafficking,” she said.
“We have an immigration policy that people can register, they should come here legally. We can vet them, we know who they are — because we can’t protect people here in Louisiana unless we do that,” she said.
“S.B. 4 will not only make communities in Texas less safe, it will also burden law enforcement and sow chaos and confusion at our southern border. S.B. 4 is just another example of Republican officials politicizing the border while blocking real solutions,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre stated.
She says states have a right to defend themselves when facing “invasion” or danger from federal inaction.
“Our Founding Fathers and our Constitution gave us that right, that if we are being invaded or we have imminent danger, our state’s rights supersede what the federal government is derelict in their duty to do,” Hodges said. “And that was what motivated me to do this bill — because if they’re not going to do their job, we have to do it.”
The effort comes as similar laws in other states are held up in courts challenging federal authority over immigration enforcement.