The Supreme Court temporarily paused an appellate court ruling permitting Texas to enforce a new state law allowing authorities to arrest and deport illegal migrants.
Justice Samuel Alito stayed on Monday the Fifth Circuit’s ruling until March 13 and gave Texas until March 11 to respond. The Fifth Circuit overturned on Saturday a lower court’s decision to block Texas senate bill 4 on the grounds that the legislation infringes on the federal government’s sole authority to enforce immigration law.
The legislation makes illegal border crossings between ports of entry a criminal offense under state law and permits judges to have illegal immigrants deported instead of facing federal prosecution. The Justice Department and left-wing legal organizations challenged SB 4 immediately after it was passed.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott (R) signed SB 4 in December during a special legislative session designed to pass increased border security measures. The bill was initially scheduled to go into effect on March 5.
The Biden administration is also challenging Texas’s ability to install razor wire at the southern border near the Rio Grande as part of Operation Lone Star, Abbott’s emergency border security initiative designed to combat record levels of illegal border crossings.
The Supreme Court granted the Department of Homeland Security’s request in January to allow Border Patrol agents to cut the wire by vacating the Fifth Circuit’s injunction enabling Texas to install the wire. Texas flooded Shelby Park in Eagle Pass with law enforcement personnel and prohibited Border Patrol agents from accessing the area in order to deter illegal migration and plant the concertina wire.
House Republicans led by Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan of Ohio are pressing the DHS for more information about its handling of the border crisis in Eagle Pass, Texas, and the removal of the razor wire. DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas was impeached by the House GOP last month for presiding over record levels of immigration.
President Joe Biden and Former president Donald Trump both visited parts of the southern border last week as immigration surges to the top of the American public’s list of concerns heading into the general election. Border Patrol agents strongly criticized Biden’s choice to visit Brownsville, Texas instead of going to the Eagle Pass area, where Trump held his visit alongside Abbott.
Days before Trump’s visit, a Colombian illegal migrant on the terror watchlist for his affiliation with a terrorist organization was arrested by Texas authorities, the New York Post first reported. An illegal migrant from Venezuela was also charged last month for allegedly carrying out the brutal murder of Georgia nursing student Laken Riley.