Iowa Defies Biden DOJ Over New State Immigration Law, Setting up Legal

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May 6, 2024

Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird says the state will defend the new state immigration law despite the threat of legal action from the Biden Administration.

“Iowa is not backing down,” Bird told One America News. “And if the Biden Administration decides to sue Iowa for doing the job that the federal government won’t do and has failed to do, we will defend our laws in court.”

The Biden Administration’s Department of Justice warned Iowa that it would pursue legal action if the state enforces Senate File 2340, a new law that permits officials to arrest illegal aliens who have previously been deported or banned from re-entering the United States.

“It really isn’t complicated,” said Bird. “It’s fairly straightforward. And the problem here that we’re having in Iowa, even though Iowa is not on the border right now, every state is a border state because of Biden’s absolute failure to secure our border.”

“We see drug cartels operating freely on both sides of the border,” Bird continued. “Human trafficking. We see people on the terror watch list that have entered the United States or have been intercepted at the border. It’s a very serious situation.”

SF 2340 goes into effect on July 1^st. The DOJ claims this not only violates the Constitution, but it is also “preempted by federal law.” Bird disagrees.

“The border is not secure,” Bird said. “And our immigration laws are not being enforced. And it’s the federal government’s job to do that. And when they don’t do that, then states have to step up to keep their state safe.”

A migrant could face an aggravated misdemeanor offense if he or she is found to be in Iowa if he or she has been “denied admission to or has been excluded, deported, or removed from the United States.”

The law elevates the misdemeanor to a felony if the migrant if his or her previous removal from the country was related to a conviction for the commission of two or more misdemeanors involving drugs, crimes against people, or some form of felony.

“If [the Biden Administration] cared about border security instead of threatening to sue us for doing the job the federal government has failed to do, if they spent just a little bit of that energy on securing the border, we’d all be better off,” Bird said. “Instead they’re going after states like Iowa and Texas for doing the right thing.”

SF 2340 is reminiscent of Texas’ Senate Bill 4 legislation which made crossing the border illegally a state crime. Texas has battled the Biden Administration in court over the legality of SB4.

“The ball is in the Biden Administration’s court,” Bird said. “I would call upon them to secure the border, enforce our immigration laws, keep our country safe. Everybody wants that. And it’s a basic job of the federal government to do that job.”

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