By BETHANY BLANKLEY | THE CENTER SQUARE
Texas law enforcement can begin charging illegal border crossers with a state crime after the U.S. Supreme Court issued a procedural ruling Tuesday.
The court issued two rulings in less than 24 hours this week, ultimately allowing Texas’ border bill, SB 4, to go into effect. The opinion sends the case back to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals to hear arguments on the merits.
On Monday, Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito issued a third extended stay on the initial stay he ordered on March 4 to prevent the law from going into effect on March 5 until the court could rule on the matter.
Alito first stayed a Fifth Circuit ruling that was issued for two consolidated lawsuits filed by the Department of Justice and El Paso County and nonprofit organizations, respectively. The two lawsuits were filed after Gov. Greg Abbott signed SB 4 into law, which makes illegal entry into Texas from a foreign nation a state crime.
In February, U.S. District Judge David Ezra ruled against the law. On March 5, the Fifth Circuit overturnedExra’s ruling and the consolidated cases were appealed to the Supreme Court. The high court was asked to block the law from going into effect as the Fifth Circuit heard the case on the merits.
The Supreme Court, in a 6-3 decision, denied that request Tuesday, allowing the law to go into effect.
In response to the ruling, Gov. Greg Abbott said, “In a 6-3 decision SCOTUS allows Texas to begin enforcing SB4 that allows the arrest of illegal immigrants. We still have to have hearings in the 5th circuit federal court of appeals. But this is clearly a positive development.”
The ruling states, “the applications to vacate presented to Justice Alito and by him referred to the Court are denied. The orders heretofore entered by Justice Alito are vacated.”
Justice Amy Coney Barrett, joined by Justice Brett Kavanaugh, wrote a five-page ruling for the majority. Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by Justice Ketanji Jackson, wrote a 10-page dissent. Justice Elena Kagan wrote a two-page dissent.
The ruling centers around the legality of issuing an administrative stay and does not address the case’s merits, punting the case back to the Fifth Circuit.
If the Fifth Circuit had issued a stay pending appeal, Barrett wrote, the Supreme Court would have applied a four-factor test to rule on the case. But because it exercised its docket management authority to issue a temporary administrative stay and deferred the stay motion to a merits panel, she said, the court “has not yet rendered a decision on whether a stay pending appeal is warranted. That puts this case in a very unusual procedural posture.”
She then went on to describe the process of administrative stays and the hesitation to rule on a case due to procedural reasons.
“So far as I know, this court has never reviewed the decision of a Court of Appeals to enter – or not enter – an administrative stay,” she said. “I would not get into the business. When entered, an administrative stay is supposed to be short-lived prelude to the main event: a ruling on the motion for a stay pending appeal. I think it unwise to invite emergency litigation in this court about whether a court of appeals abused its discretion at this preliminary step – for example, by misjudging whether an administrative stay is the best way to minimize harm while the court deliberates.”
Sotomayor and Jackson said the decision “invites further chaos and crisis in immigration enforcement,” and the Fifth Circuit issued its ruling “with no reasoned analysis.”
“Texas can now immediately enforce its own law imposing criminal liability on thousands of noncitizens and requiring their removal to Mexico,” they lamented. As a result, the Supreme Court gave “a green light to a law that will upend the longstanding federal-state balance of power and sow chaos, when the only court to consider the law concluded that it is likely unconstitutional.”
While they debated aspects of administrative stays and attacked the merits of Texas’ law, they also attacked the Fifth Circuit. They said, “Texas’s novel scheme requires careful and reasoned consideration in the courts. The District Court gave S. B. 4 careful consideration and found that it was likely unconstitutional. The Fifth Circuit has not yet weighed in, but nevertheless issued a one-sentence administrative order that is maximally disruptive to foreign relations, national security, the federal-state balance of power, and the lives of noncitizens. The Court should not permit this state of affairs.”
Justice Kagan said she didn’t think the Fifth Circuit’s use of an administrative stay versus a stay pending appeal “should matter. … But a court’s unreasoned decision to impose one for more than a month, rather than answer the stay pending appeal issue before it, should not spell the difference between respecting and revoking long-settled immigration law.”
When signing SB 4 into law, Abbott said President Joe Biden’s “deliberate inaction has left Texas to fend for itself,” pointing to Article 1 Section 10 of the U.S. Constitution, which empowers states “to take action to defend themselves and that is exactly what Texas is doing.”
The law stipulates that repeat offenders who illegally reenter Texas can face a prison sentence of up to 20 years. It also gives law enforcement officials the authority to return illegal foreign nationals to a port of entry and/or arrest them for unlawful entry.
Finally.
See. So much better than retaliating and bussing illegals and criminals deep into the heart of our beloved America.
This election will come down to where people’s pain threshold lies. Who’s the better masochist!
Finally🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸
Great news. Texas needs to get busy evicting the hundreds of thousands of criminals that have illegally crossed into Texas. Biden and his traitors in DC want our borders open, and our country overrun. Biden wants the USA to be a Third World nation.
Democrats are traitors. Make hay while the sun shines, Texas. This window of opportunity may not last.
Sanity. Too bad it was across political lines
Think again. Appeals court just blocked the law again, after SCOtUS ruling.
I wonder if the cartel is going to ramp up their attacks on border patrol since this decision has come about? Prayers for everyone’s safety that are working on the border!
Trump has effectively blocked Congressional cooperation on the Border bill so that he can use the immigration issue as a cudgel in the upcoming election. Rather than carrying on and endless p*ss*ng content in the courts, why not work cooperatively between parties to pass effective border reform?
That’s what rational people really want to see – except for those who are committed to waging political war instead of solving the real problem.
Your radical leftist extremist disingenousity knows no bounds, hans.
Your idea of “work cooperatively between parties” means to SURRENDER to totally uncontrolled and invasive immigration.
And you know damned well that it is YOUR party, the party of chaos and destruction, that has most used the immigration crisis as a cudgel, and as a weapon to destabilize this nation while pursuing its “Great Replacement Strategy”.
Import masses of undocumented and unreviewed third world, import banana republic-style third world politics. It is really that simple.
You and your ilk are traitors to this nation, quite literally.
A question I often ponder is: just how dumb are these people?
I realize our public education is moose poop, and higher ed worse, but damn…
I’m not convinced the majority are actually traitorous. Some, certainly, but not all.
More and more as I talk to these people I’m becoming convinced they are the epitome of useful idiots. With a heavy emphasis on idiot.
Many are genuinely convinced they are doing the right thing because they are too stupid to know better.
They deserve pity more than scorn. But they also deserve to feel the consequences of their actions.
Current statistics indicate that the nation will become “minority white” in 2045. During that year, whites will comprise 49.7 percent of the population. This is already baked into the cake and will happen whether you like and accept it or not.
I suppose that the indigenous people of North America similarly watched in fear and denial as white Europeans like you immigrated and took over their lands. Whites have no God-given right to own the continent, and the mass migration of human beings has occurred since the mankind first walked the Earth.
So, the future is coming and it is unstoppable. You’d better to learn how to accept and live with it than to continue in your futile and Quixotic resistance.
Child, you’re embarrassing yourself. Go play with a puppy.
As original and creative as always. Ignore.
You can’t ignore me. You are desperate for my approval.
Hans, can you pick an identity and stick with it?
Trump? Sounds like more leftist psychological projection. States should have the right to defend their borders from invaders.
I often wonder, if we were able to send a group of these people to some place like Attu, what would they talk about?
Trump can only be blamed for so much while they enjoy nature in its fullest without evil human intervention.
If all the sudden the internet is gone, cell phones are gone, Safeway is gone, heating oil is gone, and shelter is gone…
It would be far more entertaining than Gavel to Gavel ever could dream to be.
Hush child. You’re making a bigger fool of yourself than usual. Quite an accomplishment, but not one to be proud of.
Trump must haunt your dreams.
Hans, Jefferson has summed it up nicely. I’ll add that the BS border bill would have allowed almost 2 million illegals per year. How is that a solution? Democrats are traitors, and idiots.
Sen. Lee from Utah did a god job identifying what a disaster the “border bill” is. Get educated Hans. Ignorance is curable:
‘https://www.lee.senate.gov/2024/2/senator-lee-releases-dirty-dozen-disasters-in-so-called-border-deal
Sadly, cruelty and close-mindedness isn’t.
Okay Hans we get it…The entire frickin mess at the border is all DJT’s fault.
We dont need border reform until Biden is carted off the white house property which wont come soon enough.
Biden sent out all the invitations to all 3rd world nations during his campaign promises before He was even elected.
He deliberately imported as many criminals as he could to support yours and his agenda to buy votes at the taxpayers expense regardless of the immigration laws that were already in place.
You obviously dont have any family members who have been victimized by the criminal behavior of the murdering raping robbing assault of children grand children and women by Illegal Aliens.
All helpless at the hands of criminal behavior of George Soros elected prosecutors hellbent on destroying America which He hates with a passion so strongly they purposely release criminals caught doing heinous crimes back into the streets so they can continue killing and raping the helpless.
The left is so blind and oblivious that even after their own loved ones are raped and murdered they still have compassion for the poor oppressed illegal immigrant seeking freedom in their Joe Biden “promised land” filled with taxpaid government handouts.
Not sure how you sleep at night but a good pair of ear muffs and blinders must do the trick for you.
Sometimes pulling ones head out of the sand and getting fresh oxygen to the brain could be helpful.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit has blocked enforcement of the law ahead of oral arguments scheduled for Wednesday morning.
Not so fast, folks. This is clearly a Federal matter according to the Constitution, and for good reason.
And of course when Abbott’s southbound bus gets to the Border, the Mexican government will turn it back.
Your steadfast defense of treason is very obvious and very telling, Hans.
We overthrew the British over far less.
Exactly. Well said Jefferson.
I never said I liked the situation. Yes, it is bas and has been under many past administrations. The issue here is that the Feds need to fix it, not Texas, and if Trump would stop blocking Congress some real progress could be made.
Hans Litten – interesting choice of a stage name. Litten opposed Hitler, are you supposing that you are opposing a Nazis? Who are the Nazis? Who uses their governmental tactics to promote their dogma?
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You reach out from your position of opposition and fan the flames of dissent to those who are emotionally attached to their political view, and do so on a known conservative site. What are you trying to accomplish? Are you pointing to those who are watching this nation be destroyed by the globalist capitalist elites as being deplorable for their sincerely held views?
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Why not try talking to those with opposing views rather than gaslighting them? Your views are self supported but cannot be disagreed with as all left leaning blogs or web sites in Alaska conveniently do not allow comments, so you choose to troll here, passive aggressively picking fights.
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You blame Trump as the reason for the border crisis? Incredible mental gymnastics are required for one to do this. The first thing Biden did when he took over was to stop or cancel all that Trump had done to protect LEGAL immigration by preventing ILLEGAL immigration. As a product of LEGAL immigration, I appreciate what Trump did. Since Biden did this through executive orders, he could countermand the previous orders executive orders with new. How does Trump have any effect on this? And more importantly, why has he NOT done this?
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By the current administrations failure to act, this once LAWFUL nation has become one of SCOFFLAWS. Please do us all a favor, respectfully, gaslight and fan the flames of division elsewhere, or at least do it in person. Perhaps go to a church or a conservative event in person to enjoy candid discussion. I would suggest taking a slightly different approach, however at least you would not need to worry about your personal safety as conservatives practice their politics peacefully and patriotically unlike the radical others. Cheers –
I simply state my opinions and call out BS and groupthink where I see it, just like the real HL did. Sorry if you don’t like it, but this is an open forum. If you can’t stand for your Conservative views to be challenged, then perhaps it’s because they are largely indefensible on their merit and don’t hold up to scrutiny.
And, no, in person won’t work for me precisely because I would fear for my personal safety, a la Mike Pence.
Open forum – yes. And thank you SD for facilitating that. You speak of my conservative views being challenged, I saw no challenge in your response, simply more inflammatory rhetoric along with the accusation of being indefensible to scrutiny.
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The facts speak for themselves, and I proudly attach my name to it. Running and hiding behind a fake name is pathetic and weak. I leave you with this:
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“Don’t fear, just live right.” — Neal A. Maxwell
Who said anything about sending them back to mexico? I understand california is nice this time of year. The highest court has ruled. Didn’t you commies learn anything in Stalin Univ?
More of this, please. More of this.
I hear that vice-resident Harris got all excited when she heard people talking about a “blow to Biden”.
You owe me another keyboard.
She wets her panties over Joes ability to mumble good morning each day
What is lost in the partisan mess is there may, emphasis may, be a legitimate concern for Texas. SCOTUS has, reasonably, ruled in past under ordinary circumstances the responsibility of controlling the border falls to the federal government.
The Texas claim is these aren’t ordinary times.
This ultimately becomes a test of federalism. How far it goes, and under what circumstances. It’s a genuine 50-50 how this could go. Especially with Roberts as Chief Justice.
If Trump isn’t re elected, what happens to poor souls like Hans?
Their reason for living will cease to exist.
The deportation processshould prove interesting, especially involving those with no or fakse ID. Also, this will quickly re-route the invasion into California, Arizona, and New Mexico through gaps in the wall. That, too, will be interesting.
Other states can too if they have laws on the books.
It’s interesting if an American tried to enter ANY other country illegally they would find themselves in prison for a long time or dead. Wtf are we doing 15 million and counting, Chinese , Haitians , Somali, and a few Mexicans. Look at the pictures
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