By Steve Neavling
A federal appeals court has upheld the suspension of Texas’ plan to apprehend migrants believed to have illegally crossed the border, effectively blocking the enforcement of Republican Gov. Greg Abbott’s recent immigration legislation, the Associated Press reports.
The 2-1 ruling comes about a week after the U.S. Supreme Court allowed the law to go into effect.
The panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals will hear arguments on the law next week.
“I think what we can draw from this, from the chaos that this has been are several conclusions,” said Lisa Graybill, vice president of law and policy at the National Immigration Law Center. “One is that this is clearly a controversial law. Two is that the politics of the justices on the bench are very clearly playing out in their rulings.”
Texas has not announced any arrests under the law.
The appeals court’s chief judge, Priscilla Richman, cited a 2012 Supreme Court decision that invalidated parts of an Arizona immigration law, including arrest power.
“For nearly 150 years, the Supreme Court has held that the power to control immigration — the entry, admission, and removal of noncitizens — is exclusively a federal power,” wrote Richman, an appointee of Republican President George W. Bush.
