Federal appeals court keeps hold on Texas' sweeping immigration in new ruling

AUSTIN, Texas — In a decision late Tuesday, a federal appeals court extended a temporary block on Texas' new sweeping and controversial immigration law that would authorize state and local police to arrest and deport people suspected of being in the United States illegally.

Maintaining the status quo after a seesaw of judicial opinions in the past week, the New Orleans-based appeals court will keep the law from taking effect ahead of an April 3 hearing on its legality. The U.S. Justice Department has sued Texas over the law, arguing that the state-level immigration policy is unconstitutional as it oversteps into the federal government's authority.

In the Tuesday night decision, the court walked through a number of issues it must contend with in ruling whether the law is constitutional, including the federal government's standing to prevent the Texas law from ever taking effect, conflicting state and federal positions on granting asylum, and concerns that individuals removed under the law would be forced to relocate to Mexico regardless of their country of origin.

The Texas law was allowed to take effect for several hours last week, after the U.S. Supreme Court reversed its hold on the law, allowing an earlier ruling by a three-judge panel of the appeals court to take effect and clearing the way for the law to be enforced. Later the same day, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed its prior ruling, again placing the Texas immigration law on hold.

"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," the appeals court panel wrote in its 2-1 decision to keep the law on hold. "Despite this fundamental axiom, SB 4 creates separate, distinct state criminal offenses and related procedures regarding unauthorized entry of noncitizens into Texas from outside the country and their removal."

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Order prevents Texas from arresting migrants who illegally enter U.S.

Ruling in favor of keeping the hold in place Tuesday, Chief Judge Priscilla Richman and Judge Irma Carrillo Ramirez wrote that there is "no basis in the precedent" to keep the Justice Department from seeking to enjoin the law. The judges added that contradictory and repetitive provisions housed in the law step on existing federal immigration processes while neglecting precedent established by the Supreme Court.

The majority opinion also said that provisions of the law criminalize behaviors that are already prohibited under federal law. Richman cited previous Supreme Court opinions from a 2012 immigration case based on an Arizona law, indicating that Texas will fall short in demonstrating why its law should be allowed to take effect as deliberations continue.

In an amicus brief filed last week, Mexico's federal government railed against Texas' law and said it creates "an atmosphere of uncertainty, fear and vulnerability." The government added that the law also denigrate its bilateral relationship with the United States, subjecting Mexicans to criminalization for "looking Latino."

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The Texas Legislature passed the law in November to codify a series of penalties for anyone suspected of crossing into Texas from Mexico other than through an international port of entry. The law allows the state's police to arrest migrants suspected of entering the United States illegally and to force them to accept a magistrate judge's deportation order or face stiffer criminal penalties for noncompliance.

The law — which Gov. Greg Abbott signed in December — was scheduled to take effect on March 5, but its implementation was delayed after the Justice Department and civil rights groups sued Texas.

In securing an initial hold in February, federal prosecutors have continued to argue that the law is out of the bounds of state authority and seeks to usurp federal power — a position that has now been presented in front of the Supreme Court.

Texas law threatens 'basic civil and human rights'

In a joint statement Wednesday morning, groups involved in the case — including the ACLU, the ACLU of Texas, Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center, American Gateways, the Texas Civil Rights Project and El Paso County — celebrated the 5th Circuit's decision to keep the "cruel, harmful, and blatantly illegal" law from taking effect as the courts weigh its constitutionality.

"We appreciate the decision to keep this unconstitutional and extreme anti-immigrant law from going into effect. SB 4 threatens our most basic civil and human rights as citizens and noncitizens alike," said David Donatti, senior staff attorney for the ACLU of Texas. "We will continue our efforts to prevent this hateful law from ever harming our state.”

But in dissenting with the 5th Circuit panel's 2-1 decision, Judge Andrew Oldham said he would have allowed the law to take effect. Oldman argued that not all elements of the Texas immigration policy are unconstitutional and federal attorneys will unlikely to be successful making that argument.

Oldham said the argument for blocking the law "is based on hypotheticals," and that Texas lawmakers and judges should be allowed to "retain at least some of its sovereignty."