Jennifer M. Chacón, a professor at Stanford Law School who researches immigration and constitutional law, said rhetoric in the Texas case stirring fears of immigrant invasions had cropped up throughout the nation’s history, playing into harmful racial and ethnic tropes and bigotry.

“An invasion envisions an armed group that is acting cohesively to enact an act of war and merits a response. That is not what it is,” she said, referring to an increase in immigration all over the world. “This is a multinational group of men, women and children who are fleeing for a variety of reasons.”