Ruling ‘a blueprint’ in border arrests
Judge tosses charge in a blow to Abbott’s migrant plan
A Travis County judge on Thursday tossed the criminal trespassing charge filed against a man arrested in Gov. Greg Abbott’s initiative to jail migrants suspected of crossing the border, a ruling defense attorneys hailed as a road map for dismissing hundreds of similar cases churning through state courts.
State District Judge Jan Soifer ruled in favor of Jesús Alberto Guzmán Curipoma, a migrant who was arrested in September on a misdemeanor trespassing charge. In a lawsuit filed earlier this month, Guzmán Curipoma argued that Abbott’s plan runs afoul of the U.S. Constitution by obstructing the federal government’s enforcement of immigration laws.
The petition accused Abbott of using his border program, known as Operation Lone Star, to “strong arm the federal government into enacting policies that (he) would prefer,” in defiance of the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause that forbids states from interfering with the federal government’s work.
“I think it establishes clear precedent in all other Operation Lone Star cases, as it relates to the criminal trespass charges,” said Kristin Etter, an attorney with Texas Riogrande Legal Aid, which is representing hundreds of migrants detained near the border. “And it does provide a blueprint for anybody charged under Operation Lone Star with criminal trespass.”
Also pressing the case for Guzmán Curipoma was an attorney from the office of Travis County District Attorney Jose Garza, a Democrat tasked with representing the state of Texas in the case.
In a court filing Wednesday evening, however, Garza made clear his office would side with Guzmán Curipoma, arguing the trespassing arrests represent “an impermissible attempt to intrude on federal immigration policy.”
The ruling by Soifer, a Democrat, came over opposition from officials in Kinney County, the conservative, rural community that has served as the epicenter of Abbott’s border initiative, and the place where Guzmán Curipoma was arrested.
David Schulman, an attorney representing Kinney County, pushed unsuccessfully to relocate the case there instead.
Abbott has characterized the operation as the toughest stand against illegal immigration that any state official in the U.S. has attempted. He says he needed to take action to address problems at the border that President Joe Biden and federal immigration officials have allowed to fester. Abbott did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“We created a court system down in South Texas where we are arresting people coming across the border illegally,” Abbott said in a recording played in court by Guzman Curipoma’s attorney, Angelica Cogliano. “And we are jailing them in jail in the state of Texas, sending the message that if they come across the border into Texas, they’re not going to be caught and released like under the Biden administration. They’re going to be spending time behind bars.”
That statement and others, Cogliano said, showed Abbott had defied a U.S. Supreme Court precedent established in a landmark 2012 Arizona immigration case, in which the justices said states “may not pursue policies that undermine federal law.”
The lawsuit present one of the first major legal tests for the operation, months after the governor directed state troopers and National Guard troops to jail migrants by the hundreds as they cross the Rio Grande onto private or state-owned land.
Though Abbott and Attorney General Ken Paxton often appeal unfavorable district court rulings to more conservative state appellate courts, it’s unclear how that could unfold in Guzmán Curipoma’s case, with Garza representing the state.
“The appellate rules are different for defense lawyers than they are for prosecutors. They only have appellate rights in some situations,” Etter said. “I would presume they’re going to appeal, I just don’t know exactly what it’ll look like.”
Soifer’s ruling is only the latest in a series of setbacks faced by Operation Lone Star since Abbott rolled it out last spring.
Kinney County, a community of about 3,700 residents, has run into a number of problems in enforcing the operation, with the sudden swell of arrests quickly overwhelming the county’s minimal court system.
Defense attorneys, advocacy groups and Democratic lawmakers, meanwhile, have accused state officials of running roughshod over the rights of the arrested migrants, some of whom have been released on no-cost bonds after being held in jail for weeks without being formally charged or appointed an attorney, an apparent violation of state law.
It’s unclear whether the operation has had the deterrent effect Abbott has sought.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials reported a modest drop in encounters along the southern border during the initial months of Operation Lone Star, and a sharp