Civil rights groups filed a lawsuit on Tuesday challenging a recently enacted Texas law, which gives state officials broad powers to arrest, prosecute and deport people who illegally cross the US-Mexico border. Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed SB4 into law on Monday as the latest escalation of confrontations between the state and the federal government over illegal entries.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed the lawsuit in the US District Court in Austin, Texas on behalf of Las Americas, the American Gateways advocacy group, and El Paso County against the Texas officials who are supposed to enforce SB4 starting on March 5, 2024.

The ACLU claimed SB4 may lead to racial profiling by police and expressed concern about recent revelations concerning links between some of the politicians who promoted the bill and their connections to white supremacist groups. The plaintiff advocacy groups also asserted that the new law will decrease the number of non-citizens their agencies can assist in seeking asylum and other forms of immigration relief.

In the lawsuit, El Paso County claimed the current immigrant non-citizen community pays approximately $591.8 million in taxes. The law therefore may present the county with severe economic strain. Additionally, the county will need to account for the enforcement and detention of those affected by the law. During testimony before the Texas legislature, defendant  McCraw stated that his department estimates there could be approximately 72,000 arrests per year under the new law.

In support of the lawsuit, the ACLU referred the court to the 2012 case of Arizona v. US where the court struck down a similar Arizona law because it violated the US Constitution’s Supremacy Clause. The Supremacy Clause states that federal law preempts state law in any area in which Congress has expressly or implicitly reserved authority to act. Since Congress has created a comprehensive system of regulation and enforcement around US immigration through the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), the courts have viewed state efforts to do the same as violating the Supremacy Clause.

The ACLU argued that Texas’s new law does not provide for any legal defense for people currently seeking asylum, humanitarian protection or any other relief provided under the INA.

Abbott defended the bill as a way to “better protect Texans and Americans from Biden’s open border policies and stop the tidal wave of illegal entry into Texans.” On Wednesday, Abbott said the bill responds to the federal government’s lack of action: “Texas will defend our sovereign authority and protect our state through historic laws like the one I signed this week.”