Late on Tuesday night, a federal appeals court halted Texas’ controversial immigration law just hours after the Supreme Court had allowed the state to enforce it.
The 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals voted 2-1 to overturn a previous ruling, temporarily blocking the law, which permits state officials to arrest and detain suspected illegal immigrants.
The panel of judges will hear arguments Wednesday morning on Texas’ request to reinstate the law while the state appeals a federal judge’s block.
Circuit Judge Andrew Oldham dissented, advocating to keep the law in effect until Wednesday’s oral arguments. Regardless of the 5th Circuit’s decision, arguments will proceed next month on whether the law is unconstitutional.
Earlier, the Supreme Court rejected emergency appeals from the Biden administration and others, allowing Texas to implement the law temporarily.
Signed by Governor Greg Abbott in December, SB 4 criminalizes illegal entry into Texas and empowers state judges to order deportations, sparking concerns about racial profiling and increased detentions.
A federal judge in Austin previously blocked the law, citing its potential to enable states to enact their own immigration laws.
Dissenting liberal justices on the Supreme Court, including Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson, expressed concerns about the law’s disruption of federal authority over immigration enforcement, indicating a potential return of the case to the Supreme Court.
