Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton recently announced that Texas will join 10 other states’ decision to file an amicus curiae brief fighting a recent court ruling on President Trump’s “sanctuary cities” executive order, Breitbart News reports.
An amicus brief is employed when a third party, not directly involved with the case of interest, requests the court’s permission to submit an argument with the intention of influencing the judiciary’s subsequent decision.
In April, a California federal court blocked Trump’s executive order, a ruling that prohibits the federal government from denying some funds to state and local law enforcement offices that fail to comply with federal immigration law.
Paxton told Breitbart, “President Trump’s Executive Order is fully constitutional and a large step toward public safety. If law enforcement authorities have policies of not cooperating with federal immigration authorities, dangerous criminals will unlawfully remain in the country, travel freely between states and continue to evade the justice system. Governments have a duty to protect their citizens — it is imperative that we honor federal laws and cooperate with ICE detainers to keep our communities safe.”
Concurrently, Paxton argues the notion that the order violates the 10th Amendment is nonsense.
He states, “Neither the Order nor the Act present Tenth Amendment problems. The Tenth Amendment prohibits the federal government from conscripting States into administering federal programs. But to the extent that the States voluntarily accept federal grant money in exchange for compliance with federal immigration law, no such conscription has occurred. In addition, the Act itself does not require state law enforcement officers to do anything. Rather, it merely displaces state laws that directly conflict by prohibiting voluntary communications between such officers and federal officials, while leaving ample room for the States to take other actions to support and promote federal immigration policies.”
The full amicus curiae brief can be found here.