Divided appeals court extends block on Texas immigration law
Source: NBC News
March 27, 2024, 6:35 AM EDT
A federal appeals court early on Wednesday extended its hold on a new Texas immigration law, meaning the measure cannot go into effect while litigation continues. A three-judge panel of the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on a 2-1 vote said in a decision issued overnight that the statute, known as Senate Bill 4, should remain blocked. The same court temporarily froze the law March 19, just hours after the Supreme Court said it could go into effect.
"For nearly 150 years, the Supreme Court has held that the power to control immigration — the entry, admission, and removal of noncitizens—is exclusively a federal power," Judge Priscilla Richman wrote for the majority. She cited in part a 2012 Supreme Court ruling that invalided a similar law in Arizona.
Whatever the state’s criticisms about the federal government’s “actions and inactions” on immigration, it is the president’s role “to decide whether, and if so, how to pursue noncitizens illegally present in the United States,” Richman wrote.
The state law would allow police to arrest migrants suspected of illegally crossing the border from Mexico and impose criminal penalties. It would also empower state judges to order people to be deported to Mexico. The dispute is the latest clash between the Biden administration and Texas over immigration enforcement on the U.S.-Mexico border.
Read more: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/immigration/divided-appeals-court-extends-block-texas-immigration-law-rcna144708
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