US Supreme Court halts controversial Texas ‘anti-immigrant’ law

Los Angeles, US, Mar 4 (EFE).- The US Supreme Court on Monday temporarily blocked a Texas law criticized by rights groups as the most extreme anti-immigrant law ever passed by a state.

The order issued by conservative Judge Samuel Alito came in response to an emergency request by the government of President Joe Biden.

The law was passed last year by the Texas Legislature and was due to enter into effect on Sunday. Last week, a federal judge in Texas postponed its entry into force after a lawsuit was filed by several organizations and the county of El Paso, who alleged that the law was unconstitutional because local authorities do not have jurisdiction to take immigration measures of the federal government.

But the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the magistrate’s decision, which would have allowed the law go into effect this weekend, taking the legal battle down to the wire.

Alito gave the Supreme Court judges until Mar. 13 to determine next steps in this new legal fight between Texas and the Biden government. The law (SB 4) “

would permitlocal and state law enforcement and magistrates to arrest, detain, and remove people they suspect to have entered Texas from another country without federal authorization,” according to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), who was part a group that filed the lawsuit in December against Texas’ move. In Monday’s emergency filing, Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar argued that SB4 is “flatly inconsistent” with Supreme Court precedent over the past 100 years.