LOS ANGELES – A judge ruled Thursday that Operation Lone Star, launched last year by Texas Governor Greg Abbott to combat the arrival of undocumented migrants to across the border with Mexico, violates the United States Constitution.
Travis County State District Judge Jan Soifer issued her ruling in the case of a lawsuit against the detention of an Ecuadorian man seeking asylum, the Austin American Statesman newspaper reported on its website.
The lawyers of the Ecuadorian, named Jesús Alberto Guzmán Curipoma, maintain that their client is one of the thousands of migrants arrested as part of Abbott’s efforts against irregular immigration.
Soifer’s ruling “establishes a clear path for all people arrested under Operation Lone Star defy your arrests ”, said Kristin Etter, director of special projects for the Texas RioGrande Legal Aid organization, which represents some 800 people arrested as part of the operation.
Guzman Curipoma, an engineer with no criminal record, was arrested last 17 September at a rail yard for a misdemeanor trespassing charge in Kinney County, on a short distance from the border with Mexico. He was released on bail and remains in Texas.
Guzmán Curipoma’s defense argues that his client’s detention violates the clause of the US Constitution that stipulates that federal laws have supremacy over state laws , and that the states cannot “obstruct or discriminate” with the application of federal immigration laws.800
Abbott announced the start of Operation Lone Star in March of last year to counteract the increase in migratory flow with state resources. As part of this measure, local authorities were instructed to charge immigrants for trespassing after crossing the southern border undocumented and crossing state or private land.
Under this Hundreds of undocumented immigrants have been arrested in recent months and prosecuted on charges of trespassing on private property.