In April, the Texas legislature voted to ban sanctuary cities, and on Sunday evening, GOP Gov. Greg Abbott signed the bill into law without reservation. It comes as no surprise that Abbott signed the legislation — he is, after all, such a hard-line conservative that he compared trans bathroom rights to the moon landing — but he did, notably, sign the bill on Facebook Live (in a monster-vertical video that you can watch at the bottom of this post).
The legislation is aimed at achieving uniformity with the policies of the Trump administration, which grew frustrated when a federal judge blocked the president’s effort (as merrily promoted by Attorney General Jeff Sessions) to defund cities that refused to give up their sanctuary status. That won’t be a problem in Texas, at least not unless a federal court intervenes, since the status is no longer recognized. Local law enforcement can now enforce federal immigration policies, and the bill allows the jailing of any police chief or sheriff who declines to cooperate. Here’s part of Abbott’s address:
“We all support legal immigration. It helped build America and Texas. But legal immigration is different from harboring people who have committed dangerous crimes. This law cracks down on policies like the Travis County sheriff who declared that she would not detain known criminals accused of violent crimes.”
Here’s that unfortunate 5+ minute vertical video, which happened in spite of Texas being hip enough to FB Live this historic clip for all to witness. ¯_(ツ)_/¯