{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://castro.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/congressman-castro-leads-texas-democrats-hispanic-caucus-members-urging-justice-department-to-block-texas-show-me-your-papers-law", "Congressman Castro Leads Texas Democrats, Hispanic Caucus Members Urging Justice Department to Block Texas \u201cShow Me Your Papers\u201d Law", "2023-12-18", "2023", "2023-12", "Democrat", "House", "TX", "Joaquin Castro", "C001091", "castro.house.gov", "castro", "https://castro.house.gov/media-center/press-releases", "scraper", "Read the letter\n\nSAN ANTONIO \u2014 Today, Congressman Joaquin Castro (TX-20) will lead Texas Congressional Democrats and members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus in a letter urging the U.S. Department of Justice to pursue legal action to prevent the enforcement of Texas Senate Bill 4 (SB 4), an unconstitutional and dangerous bill that would authorize state law enforcement and judicial authorities to obstruct federal immigration law. Texas Governor Greg Abbott is expected to sign SB 4 into law later this afternoon and the letter will be sent shortly after.\n\n\u201cThis bill is set to be the most extreme anti-immigrant state bill in the United States; it is clearly preempted by federal law and when it goes into effect will likely result in racial profiling, significant due process violations, and unlawful arrests of citizens, lawful permanent residents, and others. In practice, this would place people with authorization to be in the United States, even United States citizens, at risk of being forced to leave Texas\u2026The process of removing people from the United States is constitutionally a federal process and excluding federal authorities, including Department of Homeland Security agents trained in immigration law and federal judges trained to enforce it, will obstruct asylum cases, result in erroneous determinations, and put many people in danger. SB 4 is an unlawful attempt to engage in federal immigration enforcement. This law will also interfere with federal efforts to create a safe, humane, and orderly system at the border,\u201dthe lawmakers wrote.\n\nSenate Bill 4 passed the Texas House and Senate in mid-November. Today\u2019s signing ceremony was announced just two days after former president Donald Trump, echoing language used by Adolf Hitler, accused immigrants coming to the United States of \u201cpoisoning the blood of our country.\u201d Governor Abbott endorsed Donald Trump\u2019s approach to immigration during a visit to the border with the former president in late November.\n\nIn addition to Congressman Castro, the letter is signed by Texas Reps. Veronica Escobar (TX-16), Colin Allred (TX-32), Vicente Gonzalez (TX-34), Sylvia Garcia (TX-29), Al Green (TX-09), Lizzie Fletcher (TX-07), Sheila Jackson Lee (TX-18), Lloyd Doggett (TX-37), Marc Veasey (TX-33), Greg Casar (TX-35), and Jasmine Crockett (TX-30), as well as Congressional Hispanic Caucus Chairwoman Nanette Diaz Barrag\u00e1n (CA-44), Jes\u00fas \u201cChuy\u201d Garcia (IL-04), Luis Correa (CA-46), Linda S\u00e1nchez (CA-38), Juan Vargas (CA-52), Adriano Espaillat (NY-13), Grace Napolitano (CA-31), Norma Torres (CA-35), and Delia Ramirez (IL-03).\n\nTo read the full letter, click here.\n\nGovernor Abbott is also expected to sign Texas Senate Bill 3 (SB 3) into law during today\u2019s bill signing. SB 3 will appropriate $1.54 billion to continue construction of a border wall along the Texas-Mexico border and for other state immigration enforcement efforts. The bill would allocate the funding to the Governor\u2019s Trusteed Programs Fund, which can be used at the governor\u2019s discretion, including for activities unrelated to the border wall. Critics have raised concerns that the funding allocated under SB 3 could function as a slush fund for projects unrelated to the original legislative intent.\n\nBackground:\n\nCongressman Castro has been a longtime leader in successful efforts to secure federal intervention against xenophobic and counterproductive immigration measures pushed by Governor Greg Abbott and Texas Republican legislators. In October 2021, he led his congressional colleagues in a letter urging the Department of Justice to launch a federal investigation into Governor Abbott\u2019s Operation Lone Star (OLS) border operation. Less than a year later, the Department of Justice opened a civil rights investigation into OLS.\n\nIn 2022, Congressman Castro and Congresswoman Veronica Escobar led a letter urging the Treasury Department to investigate the possible misappropriation of coronavirus relief funds to fund Operation Lone Star. The Treasury Department opened the investigation that lawmakers requested less than a week later.\n\nIn July 2023, Congressman Castro led 80+ U.S. House Democrats, including all Democrats in the Texas congressional delegation and the chairs of the Congressional Hispanic, Black, and Asian-Pacific American caucuses, in a letter calling on the Biden administration to investigate Operation Lone Star and pursue legal action to address Governor Abbott\u2019s obstruction of federal immigration enforcement and cruelty toward migrants. Shortly after lawmakers sent the letter, the Department of Justice filed a lawsuit to compel the state of Texas to remove buoy barriers placed in the Rio Grande River. In early December, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ordered Texas to remove the barriers.", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-08T01:14:16Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://castro.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/congressman-castro-leads-texas-democrats-hispanic-caucus-members-urging-justice-department-to-block-texas-show-me-your-papers-law"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.3928660191595554, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}