TEXAS — A law passed in 2023 that would allow local police to arrest people suspected of illegally entering the country has now been blocked by the court while a lawsuit is being considered.
This decision comes after civil rights groups, including the American Civil Liberities Union (ACLU) of Texas, filed a lawsuit earlier this month against certain provisions of Senate Bill 4. In a news release at the time of the filing, the ACLU of Texas called the law “one of the most extreme anti-immigrant laws ever passed by any state legislature in the country.”
“S.B. 4 would transform our police and judges into immigration agents — threatening neighbors who have families here, who have lived here for years, even those who have legal status,” said Adriana Piñon, legal director at the ACLU of Texas, in the release. “Immigration enforcement is exclusively the federal government’s arena, and no state has ever claimed the power Texas threatens to wield here.”
The law was set to take effect on Friday, but a district court judge granted a preliminary injuction.
In his ruling, U.S. District Judge David A. Ezra said SB 4 conflicts with federal law “because it provides state officials the power to enforce federal law without federal supervision.”
Ezra also seemed to allude that he would likely side with the civil rights groups, saying that SB 4 violates the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution, which states that federal laws supersede state law.
“Indeed, it is implausible to imagine each of the fifty United States having their own state immigration policy superseding the powers inherent in the United States as a Nation,” Ezra wrote in the ruling.
Back in April, the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals tossed out a previous lawsuit over SB 4, claiming that the plaintiffs lacked standing.