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1h ago

Appeals Court Lets Texas Enforce Key Parts of SB4

The order permits state arrest and removal measures to take effect as judges decide whether the law improperly intrudes on federal immigration power.

A drone view shows the sun rise over migrants as they stand along the U.S. side of the Rio Grande while the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals hears oral arguments on Texas' motion to lift a block on its SB4 immigration law that would allow state officials to arrest migrants suspected of being in the country illegally, in El Paso, Texas, U.S., March 22, 2024. REUTERS/Adrees Latif
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Overview

  • A three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals stayed a lower-court injunction on May 29, allowing central provisions of Texas’s SB4 to be enforced while the lawsuit continues.
  • The parts reactivated include a state crime for unauthorized entry or reentry, authority for local officers to arrest on immigration suspicion, power for magistrates to issue removal orders, and a crime for failing to obey those orders.
  • Texas officials have not moved immediately to mass-enforce the law, and state filings say Department of Public Safety Director Freeman Martin has not decided what operational steps DPS will take.
  • Governor Greg Abbott hailed the ruling as a border-security win and vowed more litigation, while the ACLU, ACLU of Texas and Texas Civil Rights Project said they will keep fighting and warned of racial profiling and family harms; Judge Leslie Southwick dissented from the appeals panel.
  • Legal experts say the decision deepens a federal-state clash over immigration and could create uneven rules across states if the law is ultimately upheld, with existing programs like 287(g) already linking some local police to federal immigration enforcement.