Tonight, Texas is being sued
for its new law allowing police to arrest
and deport suspected migrants.
The suit says
that it preempts federal law
and is therefore unconstitutional.
Meantime, more than 12,000
migrants were apprehended on the U.S.
southern border
in just the last 24 hours.
That is a daily record.
Near Eagle Pass, Texas.
CNN's Rosa Flores is there.
Abby, what you see behind me
are thousands of migrants
who are waiting to be transported
for immigration processing.
Look over my shoulder.
You'll see men, women, children.
And what you're looking at right now
is a federal issue.
It's up to the federal government
to apprehend these individuals,
process them and hold them.
But Governor Greg Abbott
just signed SB four
this creates a new state
crime for illegal entry into the country,
which means
what you're looking at
could be a state issue
come March of 2024.
Now, the ACLU has
already filed the lawsuit.
So this is caught in a legal battle.
Governor Abbott has already said
that he plans to take this legal battle
all the way to the US Supreme Court.
But it's local communities
who are very concerned
because what you're looking at
could end up in the hands of counties
and cities who don't have funds.
I've talked to individuals
all along the border,
including the sheriff
from Maverick County where I am.
And he says that his deputies
are not trained in immigration law
and that he doesn't have space for
them in their jails. Abby,
Rosa Flores, thank you for that.
And for more on this,
I want to bring in former Chicago
Mayor Lori Lightfoot,
who dealt with a surge of migrants
in her city as mayor.
Mayor Lightfoot,
thank you very much
for joining us tonight.
My pleasure.
Now, today, as Rosa was just saying.
Texas Governor
Greg Abbott has signed that bill
that makes entering
the state of Texas
illegally a state crime.
Is this, in your view, a reasonable way
for him
to try to curb
what we are seeing there on the screen?
Thousands of migrants
pouring in from the southern border?
Well, when you talk about Greg Abbott
and the Texas legislature, it's hard to
use the word reasonable
about anything that they're doing.
I know from my own experience
receiving no notice and busses,
just dumping
migrants who were
entered into the country legally.
And I think that's something
that people don't understand.
The migrants that are coming to
our city are in this country legally.
Greg Abbott
and the Texas legislature
have decided
that they want to manufacture a human
and humanitarian crisis in cities
like Chicago, in New York
and Washington, D.C.
Denver L.A., Phenix and other cities.
This latest
effort by Greg Abbott to gain relevance
on a national level
and impose his will on what is
clearly the
domain, an exclusive domain
of the federal government.
I don't think that it will stand
But the cynicism
that he's
exhibiting by saying,
I'm going to take this
all the way
to my friends
who are the conservative activists,
a Supreme Court shows a level of cynicism
that is even beneath someone like him.
I'm hoping, frankly, the DOJ will step in
and join the ACLU in challenging
this new law.
Just putting aside for a second
what needs to be worked out
in terms of the legality of this. Right.
Whether the state of Texas
has the authority to do this.
As a governor, he is dealing with
actually orders of magnitude
more than what cities like yours,
Chicago, dealt
with when you were mayor
and is dealing with now
under those circumstances.
Do you understand why,
you know, leaders in Texas,
whether you're the mayor of a border town
or the governor,
feels a
sense of
desperation by these numbers
that they're seeing now.
But what he's exhibiting
is not a sense of desperation.
Look, there's no question whatsoever
that there is a
immigration crisis,
that it comes to our borders
every single day.
I've spoken
with border mayors about the challenges
that they have faced.
And we've had teams
that have gone down to the border
to understand the magnitude
of the challenge firsthand.
But you don't solve
that problem, number one, by usurping
the the
authority of the federal government.
And you certainly don't
solve that problem
by losing sight
of the humanity of these migrants,
many of whom are sick and injured
and need medical care
that get tricked into getting on busses
with a one way ticket free option.
Only to cities like Chicago.
That is not the way you solve
this problem.
I think Governor Abbott
in the Texas
legislature really wanted to do something
to address this issue.
They would work
collaboratively
with the federal government
and they work collaboratively
with cities and states
like Illinois, like Chicago.
But that's not what this is about.
This is about creating
a humanitarian crisis,
making a political statement
and not a public policy statement
to try to get to solutions
that works to the benefit
of everyone involved.
I want to ask you
about something
that we're also seeing
playing out on the national level.
President,
former President Trump
doubling down on this anti-immigrant
rhetoric that,
as we've pointed out and others have,
really has
its origins
in a pretty authoritarian places.
He today suggested that mass deportations
of students
who don't speak English should happen.
Listen to what he said
They go into classes.
They don't speak English.
Nobody knows what to do.
Well,
we don't have any people
that even understand
or know those language is a YouTube.
They're all over the place.
We have
classrooms in schools
which are loaded up with people
that don't speak a word of English.
And the schools are there
and they have no idea
what to do about it.
It's a very sick situation.
Your reaction?
Well, first of all,
there's very little truth
to what he just said.
And let's again, not forget
we're talking about human beings
and specifically
we're talking about children.
And schools all over the country
for decades now have had English
classes
and taught in different languages.
So schools know how to address
these issues and challenges
because they've been doing it
and doing it well for decades now.
But fundamentally demonizing the other.
You know, look, as a black woman
whose parents grew up
in the segregated South
and how we were demonized
simply by the color of our skin,
I am very, very sensitive
and aware of the kind of loaded language
that is intended to blow a dog whistle
to to generate hate and division.
And that's
what the former president
does on a regular basis.
He did it in 15
when he had his announcement.
He did it throughout his presidency.
He's doing it now
because he believes that that stirs
some kind of base in his support.
But what it does,
frankly, is rings as un-American.
It's clearly
grounded in horrible, racist rhetoric
that has been tied to some of the worst
authoritarian dictators
and human
rights abusers
that are our world has ever known.
We don't need that here.
It doesn't solve any problems.
And what it does is
it pushes us further apart.
Instead of bringing us together
at a time
when as a country
and our democracy needs it most.
I completely abhor that rhetoric
and condemn him
for using that kind of loaded,
awful language.
Former Mayor Lori Lightfoot,
you call it a dog whistle.
Sounds like a bullhorn
at this point with the frequency
with which he repeats it.
Thank you for joining us tonight.