There's no denying that there's a crisis at America's southern border. Even many of Joe Biden's most ardent defenders will admit that. But several questions remain: what can and should be done about it, and by whom?

The state of Texas and the Biden administration are currently fighting in federal court over some of the proposed answers to those questions.

Fed up with the administration's unwillingness to enforce existing federal law, Texas passed Senate Bill 4 in November 2023. The law gives Texas police officers the authority to arrest people suspected of entering the United States illegally. It also allows Texas state judges to order deportations to Mexico and adds "improper border entry" as a state criminal offense.

The Biden administration and the state of Texas are currently fighting over the constitutionality of the law in the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. Regardless of what that court decides, the fate of Senate Bill 4 will ultimately be determined by the U.S. Supreme Court, which so far has refused to weigh in on the merits of the legal dispute.

Although much of the media coverage of the legal battle between the White House and Texas has focused on illegal immigration, the heart of the issue is whether Texas has the constitutional authority to defend its citizens from the negative effects of having hundreds of thousands or even millions of people illegally cross its border each year.

In other words, the real dispute is about states' rights, not immigration. This makes it a vitally important issue, no matter what you think about immigration policy.

Under most circumstances, the Constitution grants the federal government the exclusive right to regulate immigration and........

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