A federal judge blocked a Texas law that would have empowered local and state law enforcement to arrest and deport illegal immigrants who cross the Southern border into the U.S.
The legislation also authorizes state judges to deport illegal aliens to Mexico if they see fit, rather than pursue prosecution under federal law. The Texas senate and house passed the bill in November, sending it to the governor’s desk for approval.
The legislation was signed by Governor Greg Abbott in December and was set to take effect March 5. However, “U.S. district judge David Ezra ruled that Senate Bill 4 violated the Constitution and prior legal precedent that gives the federal government the sole authority to enforce immigration laws and policies” reports National Review.
Ezra also rejected Texas’s defense that the record surge in immigration constitutes an “invasion,” which Abbott declared in January under Article I of the Constitution. “To allow Texas to permanently supersede federal directives on the basis of an invasion would amount to nullification of federal law and authority — a notion that is antithetical to the Constitution and has been unequivocally rejected by federal courts since the Civil War,” he wrote in his order.
National Review writes that the judge filed a preliminary injunction to prohibit enforcement of the law while the case plays out in court: “Texas officials will likely appeal Ezra’s ruling to the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, based in New Orleans, La. If they do, this would become the third immigration-related case that is waiting for a ruling by the federal court.”