Texas v. United States of America

No. 95-40721 (5th Cir. Feb. 28, 1997). ; Clearinghouse Number: 52224

Description

Fifth Circuit Affirms Dismissal of Texas' Challenge to U.S. Failure to Enforce Immigration Laws

Abstract

The Fifth Circuit has affirmed the district court’s order dismissing this action in which the State of Texas sought to require the United States to pay the educational, medical, and criminal justice expenses allegedly incurred by the state as a result of the presence of undocumented aliens in Texas. Plaintiff alleged that hundreds of thousands of undocumented aliens live in Texas as a direct consequence of federal immigration policy, and that defendants had violated the Constitution and immigration laws by failing to reimburse Texas for its expenditures on those aliens. Plaintiff claimed that defendants had breached duties imposed on them by the naturalization clause of the Constitution, specifically the duty to control immigration and to pay for the consequences of federal immigration policy. Plaintiff also claimed that defendant had commandeered state resources in violation of the Tenth Amendment, and that defendants’ failure to pay immigration-related expenditures denigrated Texas’ republican form of government, in violation of the Constitution’s guaranty clause and the Articles of Annexation for Annexing Texas to the United States. Finally, plaintiff claimed that the Attorney General’s failure to prevent illegal immigration violated the Immigration and Nationality Act. The district court granted defendants’ motion to dismiss, and Texas appealed. Finding that neither the language, history, nor judicial interpretations of the naturalization clause supported plaintiff’s contention that it imposes a reimbursement duty on the federal government, the court of appeals held that plaintiff’s naturalization clause claim lacked merit. The court also held that, in the absence of a federal statute or regulation or executive branch directive specifically compelling states to provide services to undocumented aliens, the federal government cannot be said to have commandeered state legislative processes. Noting that Texas presented no manageable standards by which a court could decide the type and degree of immigration law enforcement that would suffice to comply with the guaranty clause’s strictures, the court held that plaintiff’s guaranty clause claims were nonjusticiable. Finally, the court held that the Attorney General’s alleged failure to enforce the immigration laws was not subject to judicial review.

Additional Information

Docket Date
1997-02-28 00:00:00+00:00

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