By Karen Gleason
The 830 Times
BRACKETTVILLE – Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton told residents here Monday he would continue fighting to force the Biden administration to get tougher on illegal immigration.
Paxton and members of his leadership team visited Kinney and Val Verde counties Monday and Tuesday. On Monday, Paxton met with Kinney County landowners and hosted a question-and-answer session at the Kinney County Convention Center.
Kelly Perry of the Kinney County Republican Women welcomed those attending, then read questions members of the audience had written on cards as they entered the convention center.
Paxton asked the staff members who joined him onstage to answer some of the questions.
First Assistant Attorney General Brent Webster answered the first question: “Can Texas sue Mexico for not stopping illegal immigration?”
“The short answer is no. You really cannot go after another sovereign nation in a courtroom unless certain things are met, and given the facts we have right now, those elements are not met to sue the nation of Mexico. Are there other ways we could influence the nation of Mexico? Yes. But litigation is not the best route or really a realistic avenue to solve this issue,” Webster replied.
Deputy Attorney General for Legal Strategy Aaron Reitz added to the answer, calling the government of Mexico “totally corrupt and controlled by the cartels.”
Reitz said the attorney general’s office is working on this side of the border to try and force the Biden administration to uphold immigration law.
The next question: “Can Texas citizens shoot back if shot at from the Mexico side of the Rio Grande?”
Deputy Attorney General for Criminal Justice Josh Reno replied, “The short answer to the question is maybe . . . If you are in imminent danger, I think the answer is probably yes, if you’re defending yourself.”
“This is a really difficult question, though. If you do that, the consequences are something that are going to be very dire. We’re talking about shooting across the border into another country. But I’m not here to digest and think about every possible scenario and advise you on what you should do to defend yourself, your person, your family. There’s an infinite number of scenarios for us to think about and tonight is not the place for me to opine on that, and I’m not going to tell anybody, here, you’re just going to have to sit there and take it. You have to do what you have to so in order to defend yourself,” he added.
Perry asked another question: “When can a property owner use force?”
Reno reminded audience members, “Self-defense is just that, and I want to, hopefully, take a large portion of the penal code and condense it down into a few advisories for you. Self-defense is a defense to prosecution, so before we get into the specifics, I want to remind everybody that it’s a defense to prosecution, meaning you’ve been arrested, you’ve gone to a grand jury, you’ve now been charged and you’re in front of a jury of your peers. That’s a long process.
“When can a Texan use force? There are a myriad of different scenarios. You can defend yourself with the equal amount of force that’s being used against you. That’s the easiest way I can put it . . . In order to use deadly force, that person has to be threatening you with deadly force or you have to believe that threat of deadly force is real before you can use deadly force,” Reno said.
Perry asked another question: “Can Texas citizens sue Biden for failing to protect them from illegal aliens and the diseases coming in with them, especially COVID?”
“The answer is absolutely, and we have,” Paxton replied. “We have sued Biden. We have 15 lawsuits total right now in about 10 months.”
He said the office sued the Biden administration over the president’s 100-day deportation freeze, which he said the office quickly won.
Reitz said lawsuits also have been filed over the “public charge rule,” based on immigration statutes that allow the U.S. to turn away any immigrants who would be expected to become “public charges,” persons “likely to draw on taxpayer-funded programs.”
The Texas attorney general’s office also sued over arrest and detention prioritizations by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the “remain in Mexico” protocols, Title 42, which require immigration officials “to rapidly expel aliens who are expected to have a communicable disease of public health significance,” and over the Delayed Entry for Childhood Arrivals or DACA, which Reitz called illegal.
Deputy of Special Litigation Patrick Sweeten said his division has focused on the immigration issue for most of the year.
Sweeten said his father is a sheep and goat rancher in Edwards County, adding illegal immigration is the number one issue his father asks about.
“We’re here because we care about you and about this issue, and just know that we are going to take on this fight, and we are going to continue to take on this fight,” Sweeten said.
Deputy Attorney General for Legal Counsel Murtaza Sutarwalla added, in response to another question, “The fight has just begun. We are not planning on giving up . . . This is a country in which we value traditional values and which has been built on fighting for liberty and justice, and we will continue to do that. Getting feedback from all of you has been very valuable for our litigation strategy, piecing together the other tools our office has.”
Sutarwalla said the Texas attorney general’s office three major priorities are border security, election integrity and big tech.
Paxton and his staff also answered questions about work his office is doing to counter voter fraud in Texas.
Paxton left the meeting about an hour after it started, but his attorneys stayed to answer other questions from the audience.
Before leaving, Paxton urged those in the audience to keep fighting, to keep communicating with their elected leaders.
“We’re trying to learn from you. That’s why we’re here, and we need your voice, speaking to the governor, my office, to the Legislature, to the lieutenant governor, even to the Biden administration. We cannot shut up,” Paxton said.
“I would encourage all of you: Do not stop speaking out. Encourage your friends, because, as Benjamin Franklin once said, ‘If we don’t hang together, surely we will hang alone,’” he added.
—
Contact the author at delriomagnoliafan@gmail.com
