Governor Greg Abbott received an unrequested warning from one of the nation’s most prominent national security attorneys in response to news the Texas Republican has ordered vehicles searched for undocumented immigrants and has chartered busses to send them to the steps of the Capitol in Washington, D.C.
“To help local officials whose communities are being overwhelmed by hordes of illegal immigrants who are being dropped off by the Biden administration, Texas is providing charter buses to send these illegal immigrants who have been dropped off by the Biden administration to Washington D.C.,” Abbott said Wednesday, according to the Texas Tribune‘s James Barragán. “We are sending them to the United States Capitol where the Biden administration will be able to more immediately address the needs of the people that they are allowing to come across our border.”
That may sound good to the Texas Republican’s far-right anti-immigrant base during a tight re-election campaign but national security lawyer Bradley Moss has some words of advice for Abbott.
Governor Abbott “really should review 8 USC 1324 before he sends Texas state officials to do anything that could get them in trouble,” Moss says.
8 U.S. Code § 1324, titled: “Bringing in and harboring certain aliens” essentially states that anyone wrongly “transports, or moves or attempts to transport or move such alien within the United States,” can face up to 10 years in jail “for each alien in respect to whom such a violation occurs.”
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