State Capitol Highlights

Paxton files brief in support of president’s immigration order

AUSTIN — Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has filed a legal brief supporting President Trump’s executive order for an immigration crackdown.

In his Feb. 15 brief with a San Francisco federal appeals court, Paxton defends President Donald Trump’s Jan. 27 executive order titled “Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States.”

The states of Washington and Minnesota filed a complaint in a Seattle federal district court and were granted a nationwide temporary restraining order that blocked key provisions of the executive order regarding Trump’s proposed ban on travelers from several Muslim-majority countries considered to be terrorism hotspots. On Feb. 9, a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco upheld the temporary restraining order.

Soon afterward, federal agencies under the U.S. Department of Homeland Security conducted White House-ordered sweeps in major U.S. metropolitan areas, resulting in the arrests of hundreds of undocumented residents.

“The law,” Paxton said, “makes it very clear that the president has discretion to protect the safety of the American people and our nation’s institutions with respect to who can come into this country.”

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