[Given that Latinx people now outnumber non-Hispanic whites in
Texas, the Republican Party’s move to pass anti-immigrant bills is a
bold provocation. HB 4 is one of 3 bills that the American Civil
Liberties Union identified as “ignorant and dangerous"]
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BEHIND THE TEXAS GOP’S LATEST ATTACK ON PEOPLE OF COLOR  
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Sonali Kolhatkar
October 30, 2023
Counterpunch
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_ Given that Latinx people now outnumber non-Hispanic whites in
Texas, the Republican Party’s move to pass anti-immigrant bills is a
bold provocation. HB 4 is one of 3 bills that the American Civil
Liberties Union identified as “ignorant and dangerous" _

, Adam Thomas

 

“Y’all don’t live in our f—kin’ skin,” said Texas Democrat
Armando Walle in an angry outburst
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at state Republicans in late October 2023. Walle was confronting his
fellow lawmakers who signed a motion to limit debate on HB 4, one of
the harshest immigration bills in the nation. The break in decorum was
reasonable considering that people who look like Walle would likely be
racially profiled as the result of a bill that his GOP colleagues
pushed through in Texas to criminalize the transport of undocumented
immigrants in the state.

“I can’t drive my brother, my cousin,” explained Walle in the
videotaped interaction
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lawmakers at the Texas capital in Austin. Like many Texans of Latinx
descent, Walle’s family is mixed-status
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Given that Latinx people now outnumber
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in the state, the Republican Party’s move to pass anti-immigrant
bills is a bold provocation. HB 4 is one of 3 bills that the American
Civil Liberties Union of Texas
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has identified as “ignorant and dangerous.”

Another Texas Democrat, Ana-Maria Ramos linked the promotion and
passage of such anti-immigrant bills
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“white nationalist and xenophobic and Nazi sympathizers,” and
explained that the GOP cut off debate over the H.B. 4 because “they
know it violates constitutional rights.” The Texas Tribune
[[link removed]]revealed
that the legislation was the brainchild of a far-right group called
Texans for Strong Borders led by a man named Chris Russo with close
ties to Nazi sympathizer and white supremacist Nick Fuentes
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That organization, along with several other far-right political action
committees such as Empower Texans and Defend Texas Liberty
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are being funded by three West Texas billionaires: Tim Dunn, and two
brothers named Farris and Dan Wilks.

In a nutshell: billionaires in conjunction with overt racists are
pushing a white supremacist agenda via the Republican Party in one of
the nation’s most populous and racially diverse states. No wonder
lawmakers like Walle and Ramos are livid.

The Texas bills are apparently modeled on Arizona’s notorious SB
1070
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a law that passed in 2010 and galvanized immigrant rights groups and
Latinx youth into a historic movement
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The so-called “Show Me Your Papers” law was modeled on an
enforcement practice championed by Arizona’s infamous Sheriff Joe
Arpaio of Maricopa County who repeatedly violated
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people’s constitutional rights. The disgraced sheriff was eventually
convicted of criminal contempt and then pardoned
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by a man who shared his values: Donald Trump.

The National Immigration Law Center [[link removed]] labeled
Arizona’s SB 1070 “a Cautionary Tale of Race-based Immigration
Policy
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and pointed out that even the _Arizona Republic_, a conservative
newspaper, ultimately lamented the bill’s passage saying in an
editorial that, “Arizona understands that we don’t need a repeat
of that divisive, unproductive fiasco on the national level.”

But Texas’ anti-immigrant HB 4 is considered even worse than
Arizona’s SB 1070. Jennefer Canales-Pelaez, an attorney in Texas
with the Immigrant Legal Resource Center [[link removed]] told
NBC News
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that “The way that the law is written is just so vague, so
essentially it is just open season on people of color throughout the
state of Texas.”

Not only does it authorize arrests of people suspected to be
transporting undocumented immigrants, it places such authority in the
hands of any “peace officer,” a term so vague that Canales-Pelaez
says it could include “someone who sits on the dental examiners’
board.” Texas Republicans have resorted to vigilante law enforcement
before—in a 2021 state-wide abortion ban
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allowing for any private citizen to sue those suspected of aiding in
an abortion.

Further, HB 4 would allow people suspected of being undocumented to be
dumped into Mexico—regardless of their country of origin. And, it
would require a 10-year mandatory minimum prison sentence
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for those convicted of transporting any undocumented persons,
including their own family members—a sentence that is longer than
what convicted rapists and even murderers
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typically get.

The bill is so egregiously unconstitutional that legal experts predict
even the U.S. Supreme Court, stacked as it is with conservative
justices, would likely strike it down
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J. Anna Cabot at the University of Houston Law Center told AP News,
“It’s just too cut and dry constitutionally” to pass muster.
Moreover, in 2012 the U.S. Supreme Court struck down
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most of SB 1070’s provisions.

The Republican Party appears to care
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little
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for the U.S. Constitution these days, preferring instead to repeatedly
push its boundaries in service of racist dog-whistles, knowing such
moves will likely face legal challenges but nonetheless hoping that
judicial rightwing activists on the bench will allow them.

It’s a theatrical gamble that appears to have multiple intentions,
including upholding racist narratives about who has the right to live
in the U.S. If HB 4 becomes law, one can infer that it would only
further fuel anti-immigrant and racist sentiments that people like
Arpaio, Trump, and Texas Republican lawmakers have forged their
careers on—rather like how anti-transgender bills fuel transphobia
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even if they don’t remain on the books.

Walle is convinced that HB 4 also serves as a convenient means to
mobilize rightwing voters to the polls leading into the 2024
elections. “I’ve been in the Legislature 16 years and over time
there has been this salacious appetite to feed Republican primary
voters by demonizing border issues,” he told NBC News
[[link removed]].
Already, the state has been implementing a program called Operation
Lone Star
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to aggressively increase border enforcement and engage in dangerous
stunts such as busing migrants to immigrant-friendly cities.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott is also determined to push through an
economic agenda
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that is receiving far less attention than the anti-immigrant
legislation: using state tax funds to subsidize private schools.
Fixated on the idea of creating savings accounts that could divert
taxes into private school tuition, Abbott has no plans to increase
public school funding or teacher pay. His attack on Texas’s public
education system means that Texas teachers have barely seen any pay
raises at a time of rising inflation, and schools have been operating
on deficits.

It’s critical to see such Republican political tactics for what they
are: a means of asserting white supremacist capitalist values in
violation of the U.S. Constitution and against the ideals of a
multi-racial democracy.

_This article was produced by __Economy for All_
[[link removed]]_, a project
of the Independent Media Institute._

_SONALI KOLHATKAR is the founder, host and executive producer of
“Rising Up With Sonali,” a television and radio show that airs on
Free Speech TV (Dish Network, DirecTV, Roku) and Pacifica stations
KPFK, KPFA, and affiliates. _

* Texas Immigration Laws; Texas Republican Party; White Supremacy;
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