A recently passed law in Texas will allow police to arrest illegal migrants who violate our immigration laws by entering the state without authorization beginning in March. What’s less well known is that another law passed two years ago authorized local police to arrest migrants for trespassing and there has already been some of that going on. Thousands of illegal aliens have been locked up under those rules, but they can’t be kept for very long based on the minor nature of the misdemeanor offense. The Associated Press decided to highlight the “barbarity” of such actions this week, telling the tale of one West African illegal alien who found himself sitting in a Texas jail near Eagle Pass for a couple of weeks.

Before settling in New York City like thousands of other migrants this year, Abdoul, a 32-year-old from West Africa, took an unexpected detour: Weeks in a remote Texas jail on local trespassing charges after crossing the U.S.-Mexico border.

“I spent a lot of hours without sleeping, sitting on the floor,” said Abdoul, a political activist who fled Mauritania, fearing persecution. He spoke on the condition that his last name not be published for fear of jeopardizing his request for asylum.

Starting in March, Texas will allow police to arrest migrants who enter the state illegally and give local judges the authority to order them out of the country. The new law comes two years after Texas launched a smaller-scale operation to arrest migrants for trespassing.

Some might see trespassing charges against illegal aliens as a rather novel approach to dealing with the border crisis, but it really isn’t. Contrary to what the White House would have you believe, entering the country illegally does not confer any special rights upon people allowing them to be exempt from the rest of our laws above and beyond immigration regulations. Trespassing is still a crime, and anyone can be arrested for it.

The problem is that the 2021 law did not confer upon local law enforcement the ability to eject people from the country and return them to Mexico or their country of origin. The new law addresses that shortcoming. It’s being challenged in the courts by liberals in Washington, of course, but at least it’s a step in the right direction.

What we’re seeing here is yet another example of Texas attempting to do the job that the Biden administration refuses to do. The AP correctly notes that the trespassing arrests have done little to nothing to stem the flow of illegal migrants, largely because the voice of the Texas government isn’t loud enough to override the welcome mat that Biden has put forth to the global migrant community. That may change once people find themselves being returned across the border to Mexico rather than being given an appearance date more than a decade in the future that most of them will likely ignore.

Sadly, the new Texas law will almost certainly not prove to be a panacea for the Biden border crisis. The police in Texas already have their hands full with many other challenges and they will face the same problems that the CBP encounters on a daily basis. If you detain some migrants and ship them back to Mexico, they will simply regroup and try again at another location. Under the current conditions, they will eventually get into the United States and be shipped to the destination of their choice at the taxpayer’s expense. This problem will not be resolved until Joe Biden executes a drastic reversal of his disastrous policies or he is removed from office by the voters. We can only hope that both will come to pass because the migrant invasion is overwhelming the country at the moment. That’s a fact that even blue city Democratic Mayors have been forced to admit. And Joe Biden caused all of this intentionally.