Supreme Court allows Texas to enforce new border law

By Lindsay Whitehurst | Associated Press

A divided Supreme Court on Tuesday lifted a stay on a Texas law that gives police broad powers to arrest migrants suspected of crossing the border illegally, while a legal battle over immigration authority plays out.

The Biden administration is suing to strike down the measure, arguing it’s a clear violation of federal authority that would hurt international relations and create chaos in administering immigration law.
Texas has argued it has a right to take action over what Gov. Greg Abbott has described as an “invasion” of migrants on the border.

Opponents have called the law, known as Senate Bill 4, the most dramatic attempt by a state to police immigration since an Arizona law more than a decade ago, portions of which were struck down by the Supreme Court. Critics have also said the Texas law could lead to civil rights violations and racial profiling.

A federal judge in Texas struck down the law in late February, but the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals quickly stayed that ruling, leading the federal government to appeal to the Supreme Court.

The majority did not write a detailed opinion in the case, as it typical in emergency appeals. But the decision to let the law go into effect drew dissents from liberal justices Ketanji Brown Jackson, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor.

Sotomayor wrote in a blistering dissent that allowing Texas to enforce the law “invites further chaos and crisis” and “upends the federal-state balance of power that has existed for over a century.”

In a separate dissent, Kagan wrote that the type of order entered by the 5th Circuit “should not spell the difference between respecting and revoking long-settled immigration law.”

Justice Amy Coney Barrett, joined by fellow conservative Justice Brett Kavanaugh, suggested in a concurring opinion that her vote in favor of Texas stemmed from the technicalities of the appeals process rather than agreement with the state on the substance of the law.

“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. 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,” she wrote.

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals could potentially block the measure again, and either side can return to the Supreme Court once the 5th Circuit acts.