Judge holds up new immigration law in Texas
AUSTIN, Texas — A federal judge on Thursday blocked a new Texas law that would give police broad powers to arrest migrants suspected of entering the country illegally, dealing a victory for the Biden administration with a broad rejection of Republican Gov. Greg Abbott’s immigration enforcement effort.
U.S. District Judge David Ezra’s preliminary injunction paused a law that was set to take effect Tuesday.
The state attorney general’s office appealed the ruling, according to a statement Thursday.
The ruling rebuked Texas’ immigration enforcement effort on multiple fronts, brushing off claims by Republicans about an ongoing “invasion” along the southern border due to record illegal crossings.
Ezra also said the law violates the Constitution’s supremacy clause, conflicts with federal immigration law and could hamper U.S. foreign relations and treaty obligations.
It is the second time in six months that Ezra has stopped one of Abbott’s border escalations, having also ruled against a floating barrier that Texas erected in the Rio Grande.
Allowing Texas to “permanently supersede federal directives” due to a so-called 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,” the judge wrote.
Opponents have called the Texas measure the most dramatic attempt by a state to police immigration since a 2010 Arizona law that opponents derided as the “show me your papers” bill. The U.S. Supreme Court partially struck down the Arizona law, but some Texas Republicans want that ruling to get a second look.