The Supreme Court on Monday weighed in on the latest dispute between the Biden administration and Texas over the southern border, keeping a controversial state law from going into effect while the law is being challenged. Swiftly responding to an emergency appeal from the Justice Department one Monday afternoon, the court said it would keep on hold until at least March 13 a Texas law that empowers state law enforcement to detain and deport migrants entering or living in the U.S. illegally, USA Today reports. A panel of judges on the New Orleans-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit had said the law would go into effect Saturday unless the Supreme Court intervened. That would "create chaos" in the federal government's efforts to administer federal immigration law in Texas, the Justice Department said in its emergency appeal. The department called the law "flatly inconsistent" with the high court's past decisions, which recognized that the power to admit and remove noncitizens lies solely with the federal government.
U.S. District Judge David Alan Ezra preliminarily prevented Texas from enforcing the law, which would make it a state crime to cross the Texas-Mexico border. In his order granting an injunction, Ezra said “states may not exercise immigration enforcement power except as authorized by the federal government.” “Surges in immigration do not constitute an ‘invasion’ within the meaning of the Constitution, nor is Texas engaging in war by enforcing SB4,” Ezra said. Gov Greg Abbott and the legislative authors of the bill say state troopers won’t target longtime residents of Texas but only those suspected of crossing illegally within the border zone. Border community leaders and immigrant advocates say the law will unfairly target their majority-Hispanic communities. Allowing Texas to deport migrants to Mexico, the Justice Department told the Supreme Court, would "have significant and immediate adverse effects on the United States' relationship with Mexico −a relationship that is critical to the federal government's ability to effectively address immigration at the southwest border."