The U.S. Supreme Court has lifted a pause on a controversial law that allows Texas state authorities to detain and deport migrants and asylum seekers, a move critics have dubbed the “show me your papers” law.
On Tuesday, the high court voted six to three to allow the law, Texas Senate Bill 4 (SB4), to take effect immediately.
Legal scholars, however, have argued that the law subverts the federal government's constitutional authority to carry out immigration control.
Human rights groups have also warned that it threatens to increase racial discrimination and endanger the rights of asylum seekers. The American Civil Liberties Union, for example, called SB4 “one of the most extreme anti-immigrant laws ever passed by a state legislature” in the United States.
Tuesday's action by the Supreme Court fails to weigh the merits of the law, which continues to be challenged in lower courts. Instead, it overturns a lower court ruling that stopped the law from taking effect.
President Joe Biden's administration has challenged SB4, claiming the law is unconstitutional.
Immigrant advocates, as well as civil rights groups, have also pledged to continue the legal fight to overturn SB4.
His challenge could eventually reach the conservative-dominated Supreme Court again, which determines questions of constitutionality.
“While we are outraged by this decision, we will continue to work with our partners to repeal SB4,” Jennefer Canales-Pelaez, political attorney and strategist at the Immigration Legal Resource Center, said in a statement.
“The horrific and clearly unconstitutional impacts of this law on Texas communities are terrifying.”
Tami Goodlette, director of the Texas Civil Rights Project's Beyond Borders Program, said Tuesday's Supreme Court decision “unnecessarily puts people's lives at risk.”
“Everyone, regardless of whether they have called Texas home for decades or just arrived here yesterday, deserves to feel safe and have the basic right to due process,” Goodlette said in a statement.
'Lead us to victory in the courts'
Texas Governor Greg Abbott and state Attorney General Ken Paxton, both Republicans, have argued that SB4 parallels but does not conflict with US federal law.
In a post on X on Tuesday, Abbott called the Supreme Court's decision “clearly a positive development.”
Paxton, whose office is defending the law in court, said it was a “huge victory.”
“As always, it is my honor to defend Texas and its sovereignty, and lead us to victory in the courts,” he wrote.
Both have become national conservative figures in their criticism of the Biden administration's border policy, an issue that will dominate the 2024 presidential election.
Texas, a southwestern state, shares a 3,145-kilometer (1,254-mile) border with Mexico. Texas leaders have said the new law is needed to control the record number of irregular crossings along the border in recent years.
Signed into law in December, SB4 is an extension of Abbott's “Operation Lone Star,” a border security program that launched in March 2021 and has since grown into a $12 billion initiative.
Under the program, the governor planted razor wire along the border, built a floating fence on the Rio Grande, increased the number of Texas National Guard members in the area and increased the amount of funding available to law enforcement. locals to attack immigrants and asylum. search engines.
'Chaos and abuse'
It was unclear Tuesday whether local authorities would immediately begin enforcing SB4, which makes it a state crime to cross the Texas-Mexico border outside of regular ports of entry.
Those arrested face up to six months in prison for an initial offense, and repeat offenders face up to 20 years in prison.
Judges can drop charges if a person agrees to be deported to Mexico, regardless of their country of origin or if they have a request for asylum in the United States.
Mexico's government had previously denounced the law as “inhumane.”
Following Tuesday's decision, White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre called the law “another example of Republican officials politicizing the border while blocking real solutions.”
For its part, the nonprofit Human Rights Watch said Tuesday that the law violates U.S. asylum obligations and federal law.
“National governments have the right to regulate their borders as long as they comply with international human rights and refugee laws,” Bob Libal, Texas consultant for Human Rights Watch, said in a statement.
“But allowing Texas to continue its draconian system of criminalizing and returning asylum seekers is a recipe for chaos and abuse.”
