The
United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit on Tuesday denied a motion by the State of
Texas to permit a law that allows state officers to arrest persons who enter the country illegally. Texas enacted in December to give local law enforcement officers the power to individuals who have entered the country illegally by crossing the United States’ international border with
Mexico without inspection. The Fifth Circuit ruled to a stay pending appeal in the case, which prevents it from being enforced until the case concludes. “For nearly 150 years, the
Supreme Court has held that the power to control immigration—the entry, admission, and removal of noncitizens—is exclusively a federal power,” Chief Judge Priscilla Richman, an appointee of President
George W. Bush, wrote for a divided panel of judges hearing the case. “Despite this fundamental axiom, S. B. 4 creates separate, distinct state criminal offenses and related procedures regarding [the] unauthorized entry of noncitizens into Texas from outside the country and their removal.” by on Scribd The Fifth Circuit cited the case , where the in 2012 ruled that an
Arizona law permitting state officials to arrest certain persons unlawfully present in the United States was unconstitutional given the federal government’s powers over immigration. “[T]he Court’s holding in provides guiding principles. The Court held: ‘Where
Congress occupies an entire field, as it has in the field of alien registration, even complementary state regulation is impermissible,'” Richman wrote. “The Supreme Court in spent considerable time and ink in explaining how the removal procedures work under federal law. ‘Removal is a civil, not criminal, matter.’ The Texas and federal laws are not congruent on this score.” Judge Andrew Oldham, an appointee of President
Donald Trump, wrote a dissent from the court’s decision. “The Supreme Court has never extended field preemption to any part of the
immigration laws beyond alien registration … [b]ut S.B. 4 does not have anything to do with alien registration. And it is hard to see how every application of every provision of S.B. 4 interferes with some other purportedly ‘exclusive’ aspect of the Federal Government’s power over immigration,” Oldham wrote. “Illegal crossings are going down in [Texas] while at the same time they are skyrocketing in [California] & [Arizona]. It’s [because] of the
border wall, razor wire barriers, the National Guard & arrests by [the Texas Department of Public Safety],”
Republican Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas on
Twitter, now known as X, on Wednesday. Abbott’s office, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, the Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. Department of Justice did not immediately respond to a request for comment. All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact .