The Supreme Court has allowed Texas to implement a law that allows state police to arrest immigrants on state, not federal, charges if they illegally enter the United States from Mexico, marking a blow to the Biden administration’s bid to block it.
The high court’s 6-3 decision comes just one day after it ruled to continue a temporary hold that was initially issued on March 4. Justice Samuel Alito, who covers matters stemming from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, led the order but did not explain his reasoning.
The legal fight will return to a three-judge panel on the 5th Circuit, which is hearing Texas’s appeal on the merits on April 3. The losing party could then appeal the case back to the Supreme Court after that panel reaches a decision.
Senate Bill 4 was signed into law in December 2023 and allows state police to arrest people on immigration charges, an authority that until now was reserved for federal law enforcement because immigration violations are dictated by federal law, not state law. It also allows local judges to order someone in custody to be deported outside the U.S.
Justice Amy Coney Barrett issued a concurrence that was joined by Justice Brett Kavanaugh, adding more context to the majority’s order. The pair of justices agreed that the 5th Circuit’s prior decision “puts this case in a very unusual procedural posture.”
Both justices contended that the 5th Circuit needs to act soon, noting that, “If a decision does not issue soon, the applicants may return to this court.”
The appeals court “has not entered a stay pending appeal,” Barrett wrote. “Instead, in an exercise of its docket-management authority, it issued a temporary administrative stay and deferred the stay motion to a merits panel, which is considering it in conjunction with Texas’s challenge to the District Court’s injunction of S. B. 4. Thus, the Fifth Circuit has not yet rendered a decision on whether a stay pending appeal is warranted.”
Justice Sonia Sotomayor penned a dissent that said the majority’s decision to “green light” the law 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.”
Alito temporarily froze SB 4 on March 4 to give the high court more time to consider the federal government’s request.
Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar said in court filings that the law is “flatly inconsistent” with Supreme Court precedent dating back nearly a century.
“Those decisions recognize that the authority to admit and remove noncitizens is a core responsibility of the national government, and that where Congress has enacted a law addressing those issues, state law is preempted,” Prelogar wrote.
Meanwhile, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has said in court filings that the measure reinforces federal law and the state should therefore be allowed to enforce it.
The Constitution “recognizes that Texas has the sovereign right to defend itself from violent transnational cartels that flood the state with fentanyl, weapons, and all manner of brutality,” Paxton said.
The federal government is not the only one challenging SB 4. The citing of El Paso and two immigrant rights groups have also challenged the law and filed their own emergency request to the high court.
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Texas is also fighting the Biden administration over the installation of concertina wire along the border, as the Department of Homeland Security argues it complicates border patrol’s handling of immigrants who cross the border by making federal agents’ jobs more difficult, including by complicating efforts to treat wounds caused by immigrants crossing through the wire.
The Supreme Court on Jan. 22 ruled 5-4 in favor of the Biden administration, allowing federal officials to cut the wire while the lawsuit continues at the 5th Circuit. However, Border Patrol officials under the DHS have said they do not plan to interfere with Texas’s wire until a final conclusion of the litigation, which could also find its way back up to the justices at some point.
