Court Showdown Over Texas’ Controversial Immigration Law SB-4

In this blog post, we share with you the latest regarding the controversial immigration law from the state of Texas known as SB-4.

In a stunning turn of events, on Tuesday March 19^th the Supreme Court of the United States cleared the way for the state of Texas to enforce its controversial immigration law SB4, which would allow state officials to arrest and detain those suspected of entering the country illegally.

The Supreme Court rejected the Biden administration’s request to intervene and keep Texas’s strict immigration enforcement law on hold pending litigation.

The legal challenges however did not stop there. Later that day, a federal appeals court put the controversial law back on hold, just hours after the Supreme Court would have allowed Texas to begin enforcing the new law.

The order came down from the 5^th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in which a three-judge panel voted 2-1 to vacate a previous ruling that had put the law into effect.

The future of the law still hangs in the balance as the 5^th Circuit prepares to hear arguments over the controversial law to decide once and for all whether the law is unconstitutional.

SB 4, which was signed into law by Republican Gov. Greg Abbott in December, makes entering Texas illegally a state crime and allows state judges to order immigrants to be deported. Immigrants’ rights groups later sued the state of Texas arguing that immigration enforcement is a function of the federal government, not the states.

Even after the appellate court rules on the matter, the lawsuit could soon be taken up by the Supreme Court for a second time.

For more information about SB4, please click here.

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