Alito briefly extends pause of Texas law allowing police to arrest migrants

Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito briefly extended the pause of a Texas law enabling state law enforcement officers to arrest migrants entering the United States from Mexico.

Alito, who handles emergency appeals arising from Texas, had temporarily frozen the law as the high court weighs a request from the Biden administration to block it for a longer period.

The conservative justice’s previous orders effectively set up a Wednesday deadline for the court to make its decision or otherwise allow the law to go into effect.

Alito’s new pair of orders, known as an administrative stay, extends that deadline by a few additional days until Monday at 5 p.m. EDT.

The extension does not provide an indication of how the court will ultimately rule on the Biden administration’s request.

The Texas law, S.B. 4, has become a recent flashpoint in the legal battle between the administration and Republican-led states over the federal government’s handling of the southern border. 

Gov. Greg Abbott (R) late last year signed the far-reaching law, giving state and local enforcement the authority — and arguably the obligation — to arrest and deport undocumented migrants.

The law created provisions to charge such migrants criminally if they didn’t consent to deportation — or, potentially, if Mexico or their home countries wouldn’t take them — and sentence them to up to 20 years in prison.

After the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued a ruling allowing the law to go into effect, the Justice Department filed an emergency appeal and demanded the Supreme Court block it, insisting it conflicted with federal authority on immigration.

The law is “profoundly altering the status quo that has existed between the United States and the States in the context of immigration for almost 150 years,” the Justice Department wrote.

They were joined by a similar motion filed at the Supreme Court by the County of El Paso, Texas, and two immigrant rights groups.

“Plaintiffs urge the Court to rush straight to the merits of their claims. But these cases do not belong in federal court at all—even apart from the fact that no state court has yet had an opportunity to construe any provision of S.B.4.,” the state responded in court papers.