Appeals court blocks enforcement of Texas immigration law SB4

In a decision late Tuesday, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a decision that again blocks Texas from enforcing its strict immigration law, SB4.

Earlier in the day, the Supreme Court rejected a Biden administration request to intervene and keep Texas's strict immigration enforcement law on hold while it is challenged in lower courts.

But in the late-night decision, the appeals court dissolved a pause on an order from a lower court that prevented the law from going into effect until litigation is concluded.

On Wednesday, the appeals court will hear arguments in the case to determine if the law should remain on hold until the court rules on SB4’s legality.

The SB4 law would authorize local and state law enforcement to arrest migrants they suspect crossed into the state illegally. It would also give judges the power to order migrants to be transported to a port of entry and returned to Mexico regardless of their country of origin.

The Biden administration has argued that immigration law is solely the responsibility of the federal government, and not local jurisdictions, as laid out in the Constitution.

"This Court has long recognized that the regulation of entry and removal of noncitizens is inseparably intertwined with the conduct of foreign relations and thus vested 'solely in the Federal Government,'" the administration wrote in a filing with the U.S. Supreme Court earlier this month.

Texas, meanwhile, has argued that it is within its rights to arrest migrants because SB 4 is applicable under the State War Clause of the Constitution, which allows states to act when it is "actually invaded, or in such imminent Danger as will not admit of delay."