OKLAHOMA CITY (March 21, 2024) -- A day after encouraging the Oklahoma legislature to pass its own version of Texas’ Senate Bill 4, Attorney General Gentner Drummond has joined a legal brief supporting Texas in its effort to preserve that law.
If successful, Oklahoma and other states will be empowered to declare illegal immigration a state crime and authorize state officials to enforce it. House and Senate leaders already have indicated a willingness to craft similar legislation to protect Oklahoma.
“The Biden Administration refuses to secure the border, so the states must act to protect our people,” Drummond said. “Oklahoma suffers the consequences of our porous border every single day. A legal victory for Texas clears the way for local law enforcement in Oklahoma and throughout the country.”
Filed by Drummond and 21 other state attorneys general, the amicus brief argues that states have the right to enact and enforce laws that do not explicitly conflict with federal statute. “Texas essentially has codified portions of federal immigration law as Texas state law,” reads the brief. “That renders much, if not all, of S.B. 4 complimentary to federal law, not in conflict with it.”
The brief says Oklahoma and other states are supporting the Texas law because they “bear an obligation to their citizens to address the attendant public crisis.” The brief notes that obligation involves one of the states’ “core sovereign prerogatives—enacting legislation pursuant to their police powers to protect their citizens’ safety.”
The Biden Administration and the ACLU filed suit over the law. A U.S. district court blocked the law, but the U.S. Supreme Court said Texas was free to enforce it during litigation. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit rescinded its order to allow enforcement of S.B.4 this week and took no action on the constitutional challenges to the law.
Attorney General Drummond joined Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia and Wyoming on the amicus brief co-led by Ohio and South Carolina.