(WatchDogReport.org) – A United States appeals court kept on hold a GOP-backed Texas law on March 26 that would’ve allowed state authorities to arrest and prosecute those suspected of crossing the US-Mexico border illegally. With a final result of 2-1, a panel of the 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans denied Texas’ request to let the controversial law take effect, as the state appealed a judge’s ruling that paused its enforcement at the appellate level.
The law, which is called SB4 and has become a center of friction between the Biden administration and Texas over immigration and border security, would have made it a crime to enter or re-enter Texas from another nation illegally. The law would have also empowered every state judge to order the deportation of those who violated it, with a 20-year prison sentence for those who would’ve refused to comply.
The panel’s decision represented the latest of three so-called rapid-fire rulings on the law’s status, as the Supreme Court allowed it to take effect, but the panel restored the injunction of US District Judge David Ezra, blocking enforcement. In February, Ezra cited a 2012 ruling from the Supreme Court that involved an Arizona law that said that no state was legally permitted to adopt immigration enforcement measures that conflicted with federal law.
According to some reports, the panel will hear arguments on the merits of Texas’ appeal on April 3. Still, many analysts believe that it would be difficult for the law to be approved and eventually executed. The lawsuit from the Biden administration, filed in January, claimed that the law violated federal law and even the country’s Constitution as it interfered with the power of the US government to regulate immigration.
The Biden administration has also said on many occasions that immigration is a federal government province and that the Texas law would disrupt the enforcement of intricate US laws governing deportation procedures and migrants’ eligibility for asylum.
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