IMMIGRATIONFederal Judge Blocks Texas Law Allowing Police to Arrest Migrants Suspected of Being in Country Illegally
Senate Bill 4 was Texas’ latest attempt to deter people from crossing the Texas-Mexico border amid a surge in migration. SB 4 was scheduled to take effect Tuesday. “SB 4 threatens the fundamental notion that the United States must regulate immigration with one voice,” Judge David Ezra wrote.
A federal judge in Austin on Thursday halted a new state law that would allow Texas police to arrest people suspected of crossing the Texas-Mexico border illegally.
The law, Senate Bill 4, was scheduled to take effect Tuesday. U.S. District Judge David Ezra issued a preliminary injunction that will keep it from being enforced while a court battle continues playing out. Texas is being sued by the federal government and several immigration advocacy organizations. Texas appealed the ruling to the conservative 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Ezra said in his order Thursday that the federal government “will suffer grave irreparable harm” if the law took effect because it could inspire other states to pass their own immigration laws, creating an inconsistent patchwork of rules about immigration, which has historically been upheld as being solely within the jurisdiction of the federal government.
“SB 4 threatens the fundamental notion that the United States must regulate immigration with one voice,” Ezra wrote.
Ezra also wrote that if the state arrested and deported migrants who may be eligible for political asylum, that would violate the Constitution and also be “in violation of U.S. treaty obligations.”
“Finally, the Court does not doubt the risk that cartels and drug trafficking pose to many people in Texas,” Ezra wrote in his ruling. “But as explained, Texas can and does already criminalize those activities. Nothing in this Order stops those enforcement efforts. No matter how emphatic Texas’s criticism of the Federal Governments handling of immigration on the border may be to some, disagreement with the federal government’s immigration policy does not justify a violation of the Supremacy Clause.”
Gov. Greg Abbott signed SB 4 in December, marking Texas’ latest attempt to try to deter people from crossing the Rio Grande after several years of historic numbers of migrants arriving at the Texas-Mexico border.
The law seeks to make illegally crossing the border a Class B misdemeanor, carrying a punishment of up to six months in jail. Repeat offenders could face a second-degree felony with a punishment of two to 20 years in prison.
The law also seeks to require state judges to order migrants returned to Mexico if they are convicted; local law enforcement would be responsible for transporting migrants to the border. A judge could drop the charges if a migrant agrees to return to Mexico voluntarily.
