The Supreme Court’s six conservative justices dismissed the Biden administration’s emergency appeal, which will allow the Texas law to remain in effect while the issue is adjudicated by lower courts. The ruling lifts the freeze of a Texas immigration law which allows state and local law enforcement to arrest illegal immigrants and empowers state judges to deport them.
National Review reports that the majority did not explain its reasoning, as is typical, but Justice Amy Coney Barrett, joined by Justice Brett Kavanaugh, issued a concurring opinion explaining that Texas should be allowed to enforce its law until a lower court definitively strikes it down:
“If a decision does not issue soon,” Barrett wrote, “the applicants may return to this court.”
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton celebrated the ruling on X:
“HUGE WIN: Texas has defeated the Biden Administration’s and ACLU’s emergency motions at the Supreme Court,” he said. “Our immigration law, SB 4, is now in effect. As always, it’s my honor to defend Texas and its sovereignty, and to lead us to victory in court.”
Texas Republican Governor Abbott celebrated the win but also acknowledged that litigation over the law will continue in lower courts:
“BREAKING: In a 6-3 decision SCOTUS allows Texas to begin enforcing SB4 that allows the arrest of illegal immigrants,” he wrote. “We still have to have hearings in the 5th circuit federal court of appeals. But this is clearly a positive development.”
National Review reports that the Court’s three liberals — Justices Ketanji Brown Jackson, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor — issued a blistering dissent to the Tuesday decision:
“Today, the court invites further chaos and crisis in immigration enforcement,” Sotomayor wrote. “Texas passed a law that directly regulates the entry and removal of noncitizens and explicitly instructs its state courts to disregard any ongoing federal immigration proceedings. That law upends the federal-state balance of power that has existed for over a century, in which the national government has had exclusive authority over entry and removal of noncitizens.”
