Judging Freedom - Texas law allows armed citizens to arrest illegal immigrants

Episode Date: December 20, 2021

Judge Napolitano details a new Texas law that allows armed citizens to arrest illegal immigrants for trespassing. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hello everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here on Judging Freedom, another pop-up as we like to call them here with my production team. This is where I just come on the screen and talk about some news of the day. It's Monday, December 20th, about two in the afternoon. We learned late last night and early this morning that the state of Texas has deputized private individuals as militias to arrest unlawfully present immigrants who are in the public in Texas. Can they do this? Well, it's a long and complicated question. You would think it was against Texas law for an unlawful immigrant to be physically present in the streets that they could be arrested for that. But the last time the Supreme Court looked at this when the state of Arizona tried to do it, the Supreme Court said no. Well, why would they say no? Okay. We have something called the Supremacy Clause, which basically says the Constitution and the laws written pursuant to it are the supreme law of the land, and they supersede

any state law. In that category of federal laws that supersede state laws are immigration laws, for better or for worse. Immigration is controlled by the feds. In my opinion, that's wrong and unconstitutional because the Constitution is silent on who controls immigration. And where the Constitution is silent, it should be controlled by the states. But that's not the way the Supreme Court has interpreted it. The Supreme Court has interpreted the. The Supreme Court has interpreted the Constitution and federal immigration law to say the feds are supreme. So to be present in the country as an unlawful immigrant is not a federal crime and does not subject you to arrest. So in my

opinion, when push comes to shove, when the federal courts look at what texas is doing even though the governor of texas and the legislature of texas have their hearts in the right place we will enforce a law that the feds are declining to enforce i think that the feds uh the the feds will win and the state of texas will. Judge Napolitano for judging freedom.