Controversy over SB4: This is how they try to block the SB4 immigration law in Texas from the courts.
Austin, Texas. The federal government was courting the city of Austin SB 4 seeks to suspend the application of the lawwhich gives the state the power to arrest undocumented immigrants and Texas judges to issue removal orders.
This is despite the fact that immigration belongs to the federal government and not to each state. To stop SB 4, the federal government filed a motion to seek a permanent stay order.
The hearing was held on February 15 before Judge David A. Happened to Ezra, who in September 2023 gave the Justice Department a legal victory to move the Rio Grande boys to the state.
In this hearing, the judge commented that he will rule on SB 4 before it takes effect on March 5, 2024.
Here are four keys to understanding the US government’s request to suspend the law.
The federal government asserts that it has exclusive authority to regulate the admission and expulsion of immigrants.
The United States Congress intended to regulate the entry and expulsion of non-citizens by the federal government, they argued in their petition to suspend SB 4.
“Immigration, foreign relations, and international border control” are federal interests and SB 4 would directly interfere with them.
That’s because the law gives Texas the power to control immigration, something Arizona sought to do more than a decade ago.
However, in 2012 the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the federal government, arguing that this immigration power does not belong to every state.
Texas wants to allow local police, sheriffs and the Department of Public Safety to detain immigrants on immigration charges. This would be similar to the functions that the Customs and Border Protection Agency, which is federal, carries out at the border and the United States.
The federal government says SB 4 could damage foreign relations and cause “irreparable damage” to the country.
Foreign relations or relations with foreign governments must be “under one voice,” as determined in the 2012 Arizona immigration case by the Supreme Court.
The United States argues that Texas’ SB 4 law creates a conflict between the country and its relationship with Mexico.
For example, SB 4 allows state judges to deport immigrants to Mexico, regardless of whether the country will accept them, the government argues in the document.
Additionally, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has already spoken out against the legislation, as he announced at a morning conference.
“We will always be against these measures… the governor of Texas is acting the way he is because he wants to be the vice presidential candidate of the Republican Party in the United States,” AMLO said.
“He wants to gain popularity with these measures.”
Mexico’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs also issued a statement against the law.
“Even before the enactment of SB 4, Mexico expressly rejected, as in SB 4, ‘any measure allowing state or local authorities to detain and return to Mexican territory Mexican nationals or foreigners,'” the federal says.
SB 4 is unconstitutional and Texas should have no interest in keeping it, the federal government argues
The United States government maintains that SB 4 is unconstitutional because the application of these immigration laws is federal.
“Texas has no legitimate interest in operating its own unconstitutional immigration system,” the petition to strike down the law says.
According to United States precedents, It is against the interest of citizens to enforce laws that go against the Constitution, as in Gordon Vs. Holder, 2013, in the D.C. Circuit, where it was noted that “the application of an unconstitutional statute is always contrary to the public interest,” the federal document says.
The case is being used by the United States as an argument in support of a petition to repeal SB 4.
SB 4 violates the United States’ Foreign Commerce Clause, the federation argues
The federal government’s application says that within the country’s commerce clause, “movement of people” is contemplated.
This means that it includes undocumented immigrants who are workers and enter the United States, affecting interstate commerce.; In this United States v. In Hernandez-Guerrero, 1997.
“Therefore, states cannot control the movement of non-citizens across an international border,” says the federal government, which would be covered by the Commerce Clause.
“SB 4 discriminates against foreign trade on its face: it penalizes not only the movement of non-citizens across the international border into Texas, but also imposes deportation as a penalty.”
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