Justices reject Biden administration’s request to prevent Texas from exercising new border enforcement power
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Jess Bravin
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and
Elizabeth Findell
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Updated March 19, 2024 3:08 pm ET
WASHINGTON—The Supreme Court on Tuesday refused to block Texas from implementing its own criminal law against illegal immigration, rejecting an emergency appeal from the Biden administration which argued that states can’t interfere with federal authority over the border.
The Texas law, known as SB 4, makes illegal border crossing a state crime and allows state officials to conduct deportations. The measure has been on hold as the Supreme Court weighed the government’s request to halt implementation while litigation over the dispute proceeds in the lower courts. A federal district judge had enjoined the law, but the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in New Orleans, said the law could go into effect at least for now.
The Supreme Court’s order in favor of Texas isn’t a final decision, but signals the state law may fare better than a similar Arizona statute that a less conservative Supreme Court struck down in 2012.
Three liberal justices, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, dissented from Tuesday’s order.
SB 4, signed into law in December, makes it a state crime for anyone without authorization to be in the U.S. to cross into Texas outside of a designated port of entry and allows state police and local judges to jail and deport violators.
The dispute over SB 4 reflects the increasing tension over border enforcement between Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and the Biden administration. Abbott, asserting the federal government has abandoned its duty to protect the southern border, has pushed a range of measures, including the installation of barriers in and along the Rio Grande. The Biden administration repeatedly has turned to federal courts to block Abbott’s policies.
Under Abbott’s Operation Lone Star, the state has spent or allocated more than $11 billion since 2021 to deploy state troopers and National Guardsmen to the border, arrest migrants for trespassing on private land, bus migrants to northern cities and erect barriers along the Rio Grande.
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