The Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected a petition from the Biden administration, clearing the way for Texas to enforce a new state law that authorizes its police to arrest migrants who illegally cross the Rio Grande.
The decision was made by a vote of 6 to 3, but several judges emphasized the preliminary nature of the dispute.
Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson issued a strong dissent. “Today, the Court invites more chaos and crisis in immigration law enforcement,” they said. “Texas can now immediately enforce its own law that imposes criminal liability on thousands of noncitizens and requires their removal to Mexico. This law will disrupt delicate foreign relations, thwart the protection of people fleeing persecution, hamper federal law enforcement efforts, undermine the ability of federal agencies to detect and monitor imminent security threats, and deter criminals. non-citizens to report abuse or trafficking,” they said.
Justice Elena Kagan separately dissented.
The question is whether Texas and other red states can strictly enforce laws against illegal entry into the country. Those state leaders say they are acting because of what they see as lax enforcement by the Biden administration.
The Justice Department said that if Texas were allowed to pursue its own hardline immigration policy, it would “create chaos” along the border and “disrupt” relations with Mexico. Department attorneys urged judges to “maintain the status quo” while lower courts considered challenges to the new state law.
But Texas lawyers pointed to the increase in the number of migrants crossing the Rio Grande and said smugglers have taken advantage of lax law enforcement.
They cited President Biden's comment during his State of the Union address: “People pay these smugglers $8,000 to cross the border,” he said, because migrants know that “if they can get through and let them into the country, It will be six to eight years before they arrive.” have an audience.” Biden was calling for a bipartisan border bill that he said would shorten the delay in asylum hearings and therefore reduce incentives for illegal crossings.
Gov. Greg Abbott had defended the new state law, arguing that Texas had the power, as a “sovereign” state, to protect itself against what he called an “invasion.” He cited the late Justice Antonin Scalia, who espoused a similar opinion in a dissent in 2012, insisting that it was a myth that the Constitution gave the federal government exclusive power over immigration.
On February 29, a federal judge in Austin blocked the law from taking effect, saying it conflicted with federal enforcement. Four days later, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans overturned the judge's order by a vote of 2 to 1 and without explanation.
The Supreme Court declined to lift that order, allowing the law to take effect, at least temporarily.
The American Civil Liberties Union and immigrant rights groups had also sued to block the Texas law from taking effect, saying it could have a “devastating impact” on immigrants and could lead to racial discrimination. .
The Texas law was seen as a direct challenge to previous Supreme Court rulings that maintained the federal government's exclusive power over immigration law enforcement.
In 2012, the justices, by a vote of 5 to 3, blocked most of an Arizona law that would have given state officials and local police the authority to impose restrictions on immigrants who “were not lawfully present in the United States.” ”. The court then said that federal law preempts or preempts state enforcement that “conflicts” with federal enforcement.
The Biden administration said the Texas law is “flatly inconsistent” with the 2012 ruling and cannot stand. “More than a century of this court's precedents … recognize that the authority to admit and expel noncitizens is a fundamental responsibility of the national government,” Attorney General Elizabeth Prelogar wrote in her emergency appeal.
In defense of the Texas law known as Senate Bill 4, state attorneys said it “mirrors” federal immigration law and does not “conflict” with it.
They said that “SB 4 allows Texas to help enforce federal immigration laws. Everyone benefits when Congress's legislatively chosen priorities are respected. …Texas is the nation's first line of defense against transnational violence and has been forced to deal with the deadly consequences of the federal government's inability or unwillingness to secure the border.”
The Fifth Circuit is due to hear arguments on the legality of the Texas law on April 3.
