The United States Supreme Court has cleared the way for Texas to enforce a state immigration law allowing law enforcement officers to arrest migrants illegally entering the state for the time being, as a legal challenge continues at the appellate level.
Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday to leave in place an appeals court administrative stay on a preliminary injunction blocking Texas Senate Bill 4 that also provides a mechanism for migrants to be deported as part of their sentencing process for the crime of illegally entering the state.
Slated to take effect this month, SB4 punishes anyone who makes an illegal entry or re-entry into Texas with a penalty of at least 180 days in jail or as much as 20 years in prison.
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The law also mandates that state magistrate judges send anyone who illegally enters Texas back to Mexico, with those who fail to do so facing up to 20 years in prison.
Justice Samuel Alito denied a request to allow the preliminary injunction against the law to take effect, with Justice Amy Coney Barrett authoring a concurring opinion, being joined by Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
“So far as I know, this Court has never reviewed the decision of a court of appeals to enter — or not enter — an administrative stay. I would not get into the business,” wrote Barrett.
“When entered, an administrative stay is supposed to be a short-lived prelude to the main event: a ruling on the motion for a stay pending appeal. I think it unwise to invite emergency litigation in this Court about whether a court of appeals abused its discretion at this preliminary step …”
Justice Sonia Sotomayor authored a dissenting opinion to the denial of the stay, being joined by Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, arguing that “the Court invites further chaos and crisis in immigration enforcement.”
“This law will disrupt sensitive foreign relations, frustrate the protection of individuals fleeing persecution, hamper active federal enforcement efforts, undermine federal agencies’ ability to detect and monitor imminent security threats, and deter noncitizens from reporting abuse or trafficking,” wrote Sotomayor.
“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.”
Anand Balakrishnan, senior staff attorney at the Immigrants’ Rights Project of the American Civil Liberties Union, released a statement on Tuesday expressing disappointment at the ruling.
“Today’s decision is disappointing and threatens the integrity of our nation’s immigration laws and bedrock principles of due process,” stated Balakrishnan. “But it is only preliminary and turned on the specific posture of the case. We’ll continue to fight against S.B. 4 until it is struck down once and for all.”
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, who had signed SB4 into law last year, took to X to tweet that he supported the decision, saying that “this is clearly a positive development.”
“Four years ago, the United States had the fewest illegal border crossings in decades,” Abbott said in a statement released last year.
“It was because of four policies put in place by the Trump Administration that led to such a low number of illegal crossings. President Biden has eliminated all of those policies and done nothing to halt illegal immigration. President Biden’s deliberate inaction has left Texas to fend for itself.”
