Texas GOP Caucus Backs Arrington Resolution Affirming States' Border Defense Rights

The U.S. House's Texas GOP Caucus announced Thursday that it stands united behind a resolution from Rep. Jodey Arrington, R-Texas. The measure argues that states hold constitutional authority to secure their borders against an "invasion" or "imminent danger."

The caucus called on Congress to approve the resolution. It pointed to what Republicans described as the "failed open-border policies" under former President Joe Biden and the millions of illegal immigrants who entered the country during his administration.

"It is the job of elected officials to protect the Americans that sent them to office," Rep. Brandon Gill, R-Texas, said in a statement. "Unfortunately, we've seen Democrat leaders willfully facilitate a border invasion time and time again. States ought to be able to step in and secure the border when federal government cannot or will not do so. I am proud to join the Texas GOP Caucus in standing up for the American people."

Arrington first introduced H.Res. 50 in 2021 amid the border crisis during the Biden administration. The resolution states that states retain sovereign authority under Article I, Section 10 of the Constitution to defend their territory and citizens from "invasion" or "imminent danger" when the federal government fails its Article IV, Section 4 duty to protect states.

Courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court, have long viewed immigration enforcement as mainly a federal responsibility.

In an interview, Arrington said the U.S.-Mexico border was largely secured under the Trump administration. He argued the resolution ensures states can act if a Democrat returns to the White House.

"What we want to avoid is what happened during the four years of the Biden administration, which is, we had a bunch of states being overrun and overwhelmed with illegal immigration and all the various problems that occurred as a result," Arrington said. "We didn't have a federal government that was doing its job and, in fact, we had a federal government that was obstructing states like Texas from actually filling the gap that they left because they abdicated that responsibility."

Arrington linked fentanyl and other drugs crossing the border to more than 100,000 overdose deaths in one year under Biden. He said illegal crossings, cartel activity, and drug and human trafficking burdened border states.

"The drugs were killing hundreds of thousands, they were killing a plane load of American citizens every week," Arrington said. "They killed over 100,000 Americans in one year, which is more than we lost in the Vietnam War. When you're losing more American citizens to what is tantamount to chemical warfare from the Mexican terrorist drug cartels, in close cooperation with the Chinese who were providing the precursor material for synthetic fentanyl, that was the greatest and most imminent threat to our nation during those four years."

The resolution has backing from the Texas GOP Caucus, conservative groups, law enforcement, and legal experts.

"The Constitution, as interpreted by the Supreme Court, forbids states from interfering with the federal government's monopoly over our territorial sovereignty," John Yoo, former deputy assistant attorney general for the Office of Legal Counsel, said. "But the House of Representatives could make its own findings of fact that failures at the border rose to the level of an 'imminent danger' that would justify a state's exercise of self-defense. Such a set of findings might bolster Texas's case in the courts as well as its political case to the public. Without such congressional support, Texas is likely to fail."

Texas GOP Caucus Chairman Rep. Nathaniel Moran, R-Texas, said in a statement, "the Framers understood that a state cannot be left at the mercy of a federal government that refuses to do its job when there's an invasion at its border."

"That's why Article I, Section 10 exists — and that's exactly the situation Texas and our border states faced for four years under the Biden administration. H.Res. 50 affirms what the Constitution already guarantees: states have every right to defend its citizens. The Texas GOP Caucus is united in ensuring that right is recognized and preserved,"

The resolution arrives during a legal fight over Texas Senate Bill 4. That law lets police arrest migrants suspected of illegal U.S. entry and allows state judges to order some to leave.

The law takes effect next week after a federal appeals court last month vacated a block from a lower court. The appeals court ruled the plaintiffs lacked standing but left constitutional issues unresolved.

S.B. 4 creates a state crime for illegal entry and lets magistrates order returns upon conviction.

Arrington said S.B. 4 could reach the U.S. Supreme Court as challenges proceed.

This week, the Texas Civil Rights Project, American Civil Liberties Union, and ACLU of Texas filed a lawsuit for emergency relief to block parts of S.B. 4 before May 15.

The groups call the law unconstitutional, saying federal authority over immigration preempts it.

Cody Wofsy, deputy director of the ACLU's Immigrants' Rights Project, called S.B. 4 "cruel and illegal." He said the groups "will keep fighting it until it is permanently struck down."

"Every court to have reached the merits of laws like S.B. 4 has found them to be unconstitutional," Wofsy said.

The groups did not comment on Arrington's resolution by publication time.