Texas’s use of ‘invasion’ clause against immigrants is racist and dangerous, rights groups say

Republican governor Greg Abbott invoked state clause after likening migrants to a public foreign enemy, but legal experts say it's unprecedented and extreme'

Texas is challenging federal control of policy on the US-Mexico border by exploiting what it sees as a constitutional loophole around the definition of an invasion" but that migrants rights activists see as dangerously ramping up fears with racist language.

Immigration policy has long been under the purview of the US federal government - not individual states - since the US supreme court ruled so in a landmark United States v Arizona case in 2012.