Overview
- Civil-rights groups led by the ACLU filed a class-action seeking a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction to stop key parts of SB4 before its May 15 effective date.
- SB4 would let Texas police arrest people suspected of crossing the border outside an official port and would allow state judges to order them taken back to the border.
- The law creates new crimes and penalties, including a Class B misdemeanor for being in Texas without authorization and felony sentences of up to 20 years for refusing a judge’s expulsion order, with transfers to Mexico.
- The lawsuit says the U.S. Constitution leaves immigration enforcement to the federal government and cites the Supreme Court’s 2012 Arizona v. United States ruling to argue Texas cannot run a parallel system.
- The Fifth Circuit recently lifted an earlier block on procedural grounds, leaving the law poised to take effect absent a new order, which advocates warn could fuel racial profiling and strain local jails and courts.