(The Center Square) – Former Republican Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich again on Tuesday argued the constitutional authority given to states for self-defense.
Brnovich testified at a U.S. House Judiciary Committee hearing addressing the issue after being the first and only state attorney general to issue a formal legal opinion that defines an invasion and lays out the constitutional authority of states’ self-defense.
Other testimony was presented by representatives of the Texas Attorney General’s Office, the Immigration Reform Law Institute and the ACLU.
Brnovich’s testimony reiterated arguments from his legal opinion defining an invasion and Arizona’s right to self-defense under Article 1, Section 10, Clause 3 of the U.S. Constitution.
The opinion, published on Feb. 7, 2022, was instrumental to three Texas counties being the first in the country to declare an invasion on July 5, 2022. Despite numerous calls for Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton to issue a similar opinion, he did not. Paxton’s first assistant, Brent Webster, who also testified on Tuesday, previously argued counties declaring an invasion were “short-sighted” and “the Mexican army wasn’t invading our country.”