Despite a couple of court rulings, Attorney General Ken Paxton says he'll keep defending a state law that one state senator says was carefully written to avoid conflict with federal law.
But the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals last Thursday cited a conflict anyway, deferring to previous rulings that have declared handling of illegal immigrants and related policy a matter exclusively under federal control.
Houston-area state Senator Joan Huffman said Tuesday the Texas law as written by the Legislature allowed law enforcement officers to take custody of illegal aliens and remand them to federal authorities, which augments rather than conflicts with federal authority.
But Senator Huffman said it's possible the federal courts wouldn't like the state law under any circumstances, "as long as we try to go into this area in which we gave Texas law officers the ability to stop someone if they see them entering through anything other than a lawful port of entry.
"Still, the state attorney general had interpreted the law to mean that we would return them to the feds at a lawful port of entry, which I think got around some of those Constitutional concerns.
She emphasizes that the Texas law was not meant to conflict with federal law but to help it.
As Chair Huffman put it, "but [it's] another tool that we could use to try to protect Texans and address the issue of illegal immigration."
She added that she applauds Attorney General Paxton for continuing to defend the state law in the face of possible federal intimidation.