The immediate future of Texas’ immigration enforcement law hinges on whether a three-judge panel in New Orleans was swayed Friday by the state’s attorneys that the legislation is essential to public safety and should not have been partially blocked by a federal judge days before it was scheduled to go into effect.
Attorneys on both sides of the issue used most of their allotted 40 minutes on Friday before the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals debating two major provisions of Senate Bill 4: whether local governments can be required to honor all ICE detainers, and whether local governments can be required to assist immigration officers on other matters.
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Last month, U.S. District Judge Orlando Garcia halted the part of the bill that required jail officials to honor all detainers. He also blocked other sections that prohibit local entities from pursuing “a pattern or practice that ‘materially limits’ the enforcement of immigration laws” and another that prohibits “assisting or cooperating” with federal immigration officers as reasonable or necessary.
The Texas Attorney General’s office is asking the 5th Circuit court to lift those blocks while the case winds through the appeals process.
See here and here for the background. There’s too much argument to excerpt, so go read the whole thing. The main thing to keep in mind is that this is about whether or not the “sanctuary cities” law can be enforced while the litigation is ongoing. The injunction was put in place before enforcement was set to begin, so from that perspective things are no different today than they were before SB4 was passed. In practice, of course, things are very different, with immigrant communities living in terror as the state argues that they’re the cause of all our problems. The Fifth Circuit is on its own timeline for a ruling on the injunction, while there will be a hearing in early November for more arguments on the injunction and whether the case should proceed on its merits. In the meantime, we wait. The Current has more.
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