By Update: An appeals court has blocked the law from going into effect. The Washington Examiner reports that “in a late-night turn of events, a Texas law that allows state police to arrest illegal immigrants was blocked again by an appeals court just hours after the Supreme Court allowed the measure to go into effect.
Hours after the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 to vacate a lower court stay against Texas’s Senate Bill 4, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit announced Tuesday night it would be weighing the Biden administration lawsuit against the law Wednesday morning. Ahead of oral arguments, a majority on that panel ruled to put the law on hold again as the legal process plays out.”
Original story:
If Joe Biden refuses to protect the southern border, then Greg Abbott and the State of Texas will, at least for the time being.
In December, Texas passed a law that “makes it a state crime for anyone without authorization to be in the U.S. to cross into Texas outside of a designated port of entry and allows state police and local judges to jail and deport violators,” explained The Wall Street Journal.
Rather than support Texas as it tries to solve the border crisis on its own, the White House sued, receiving a stay of the law while the court system determined whether or not the move was constitutional.
On Tuesday, the Supreme Court overturned the stay, allowing for the law to go into effect.
The New York Times writes that the Supreme Court temporarily sided with Texas on Tuesday in its increasingly bitter fight with the Biden administration over immigration policy, allowing an expansive state law to go into effect that makes it a crime for migrants to enter Texas without authorization.
As is typical when the court acts on emergency applications, its order gave no reasons. But Justice Amy Coney Barrett, joined by Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh, filed a concurring opinion that seemed to express the majority’s bottom line.
They were returning the case to an appeals court for a prompt ruling on whether the law should be paused while an appeal moves forward, Justice Barrett wrote. “If a decision does not issue soon,” she wrote, “the applicants may return to this court.”
For now, though, Texas law enforcement officials will be allowed to arrest people suspected of crossing the border illegally. How long that remains true is now a question for the appeals court.
In their dissents, Justices Brown Jackson and Sotomayor did what they always do, which is to just support whatever Democrats want at the time being.
“The Court gives a green light to a law that will upend the longstanding federal-state balance of power and sow chaos, when the only court to consider the law concluded that it is likely unconstitutional,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in a dissent joined by Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. “This law implicates serious issues that are subject to ongoing political debate, and Texas’s novel scheme requires careful and reasoned consideration in the courts to determine which provisions may be unconstitutional.”
Justice Elena Kagan also dissented, saying that she would not have allowed the law to take effect, reported The Daily Caller.
In defending the law, noted The Hill, “Texas argued the state has a constitutional right to defend itself and the Biden administration was unwilling or unable to defend the border.
‘Plaintiffs urge the Court to rush straight to the merits of their claims,” the state responded in court papers. “But these cases do not belong in federal court at all—even apart from the fact that no state court has yet had an opportunity to construe any provision of S.B.4.’
After the Justice Department sued, a federal district judge blocked SB4. But the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals later issued an administrative stay that would’ve allowed the law to temporarily take effect.
To keep the law on hold, the Justice Department then sought emergency relief from the Supreme Court, joined by a similar application filed by the County of El Paso, Texas, and two immigrant rights groups.”
While the president has acknowledged that 7 million immigrants entering the country are a problem, most of his staff do not believe the current situation occurring at the border is a crisis, despite multiple cities declaring states of emergency across the country due to an influx of migrants.
Liberals have mostly mocked concerns about the increase in illegal immigration since 2021.
In fact, the left has become more focused on regulating the term “illegal immigrant” than actually handling illegal immigration. Following his State of the Union Address, Joe Biden’s supporters forced the president to apologize for calling the alleged murderer of Laken Riley, a college student in Georgia who was brutally attacked while on a jog, “an illegal.”
The Texas law was in response to the White House planning to enact a “remain in Texas” policy.
Last fall, The Los Angeles Times reported that the “Biden administration is considering forcing some migrant families who enter the country without authorization to remain near the border in Texas while awaiting asylum screening, effectively limiting their ability to travel within the United States.”
[Read More: Liberal Justice Abandons First Amendment]
