The Supreme Court on Monday again extended its freeze of a Texas law that authorizes state and local law enforcement to arrest and state judges to deport illegal aliens.
Signed off by Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, the pause marks the second one since last Tuesday, when he extended it until March 18. Alito initially issued an administrative stay on March 4 for the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that would have allowed Texas Senate Bill 4 to go into effect while the appellate court considers its legality.
Alito issued the order because he deals with emergency applications emerging from the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The Biden administration, which has called the law an “unprecedented intrusion into federal immigration enforcement,” filed the emergency appeal. The second stay comes after the Fifth Circuit on March 2 reversed a lower court’s decision to block S.B. 4 on the basis that the legislation infringes on the federal government’s authority to enforce immigration law.
S.B. 4 would give state and local law-enforcement agencies the authority to arrest illegal immigrants who cross the border from Mexico into Texas outside of officially designated ports of entry. The law, signed by Governor Greg Abbott in December, can charge illegal aliens with a state misdemeanor or a felony, if they are charged with additional crimes or don’t comply with a judge’s orders. Prison time for violating the legislation varies from one to 20 years, depending on the charge that is leveled.
The law also empowers state judges to deport illegal aliens to Mexico if they determine that to be a more appropriate course of action than pursuing prosecution under federal law.
Alito’s latest pause is indefinite, to be continued until a “further order” from him or the Supreme Court. The law’s defenders and Texas officials have resisted the Department of Justice’s claims that the law usurps federal power and have taken the unprecedented border crisis, which Abbott explicitly declared an “invasion,” into their own hands.
The federal government is also legally challenging Texas over its deployment of buoy barriers and concertina wire as physical deterrents to illegal border crossings. Texas set down these obstacles last year under Operation Lone Star.
In late February, U.S. district court judge David Ezra blocked Texas from enforcing S.B. 4. The Fifth Circuit then suspended that ruling at Texas’s request before Alito suspended the appellate court’s order twice. The Fifth Circuit is expected to hear arguments on the merits of S.B. 4 on April 3.