State law that would allow local officers to arrest migrants halted hours after US supreme court allowed it
Texas was in a state of confusion early on Wednesday in the hours after another freeze on the controversial new state law that would allow local law enforcement to arrest migrants – the legal jurisdiction of the federal government – hours after the US supreme court had allowed it.
There was puzzlement, after the law had been in force for a few hours and was then blocked by an appeals court around midnight, about whether and when state troopers or Texas national guard soldiers – who have the most interaction with migrants – would begin enforcement.
A hearing was to take place on Wednesday before a panel of the fifth circuit court of appeals, which issued the most recent ruling in the twisting case of the law known as SB4 late on Tuesday.
The Kinney county sheriff, Brad Coe, who has largely embraced the multibillion-dollar border enforcement effort of Texas’s hard-right governor, Greg Abbott, said he was “prepared to proceed with prosecutions” but officers would need “probable cause” to make arrests. His county covers a stretch of border near Del Rio that was recently the busiest corridor for illegal crossings but has quieted considerably.
“It is unlikely that observers will see an overnight change,” Coe said.
The El Paso county judge, Ricardo Samaniego, the top county executive, said immigration enforcement should remain a federal, not state, responsibility, echoing the Biden administration’s view.
He said heightened law enforcement presence in the city of El Paso during a previous migrant surge brought high-speed chases and traffic stops based on assumptions that passengers were in the country illegally.
“We had accidents, we had injuries, we got a little glimpse of what would happen if the state begins to control what happens in respect to immigration,” Samaniego said.
The impact of the battle between state and federal powers over immigration law extends far beyond the Texas border. Republican legislators wrote the law so that it applies in all of the state’s 254 counties, although Steve McCraw, the director of the Texas department of public safety, has said he expects it will mostly be enforced near the border.
