Appeals court allows Texas’s anti-immigrant law to go into effect

Texas’s anti-immigrant law is closer to going to the Supreme Court. A ruling by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals vacated a district court decision that stopped the controversial law — which allows anyone suspected of being undocumented to be arrested and deported to Mexico — from going into effect. On Saturday, the Fifth Circuit gave the Biden administration seven days to file a new appeal, which would bring the case before the Supreme Court. If the Supreme Court does not intervene, the authorities will be able to apply the law as of next Saturday.

The decision of the New Orleans-based court came on Saturday night, two days after federal Judge David Ezra stopped the law, known as SB4, from going into effect, arguing that it is unconstitutional. The lower court judge said that the legislation proposed by Governor Greg Abbott gives state authorities powers to regulate migration that only federal officials have. Abbott, the governor who has made the fight against irregular immigration one of his priorities, announced on Friday that the state would appeal Ezra’s decision at the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Judge Edith Brown Clement, who was appointed to the Fifth Circuit by President George W. Bush, and Judge Kurt Engelhardt, a Trump appointee, sided with Abbott. Judge Irma Carrillo Ramirez, the daughter of braceros (laborers) and the only Latina to ever sit on the court’s panel, dissented. Ramirez was appointed to the court in December of last year after being nominated by President Joe Biden.

Last Friday, Abbott announced that his administration would appeal to the Fifth Circuit. But the governor is pinning his hopes on the Supreme Court’s conservative majority. “Even from his court, this District Judge admits that this case will ultimately be decided by the Supreme Court,” the governor said.

Abbott signed the bill into law in December at an event held on the Mexican border, an area that received record numbers of irregular immigrants in 2023. SB4 makes illegal entry into Texas a crime punishable by up to six months in prison. Repeat offenders, however, face stiffer penalties, which can be from two to 20 years behind bars.

One of the most controversial parts of the law allows state authorities to bring undocumented persons before local judges. Those judges could then initiate proceedings to expel the migrants from the state. The migrants would presumably be sent to Mexico, regardless of whether or not they are Mexican nationals. Mexico’s government has strongly and repeatedly opposed SB4. The deportation of migrants by a state is considered unconstitutional by several jurisdictions. “Expulsion touches on one of the most sensitive foreign affairs considerations of federal policy,” Judge Ezra noted in the ruling that was reversed.

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