The Washington Post

BIDENTRUMPIMMIGRATION sig

Eagle Pass TX border bodies

U.S. Supreme Court allows Texas law on suspected illegal immigrants to take effect

Panoramic View Of The Borderlands: Southwestern U.S. And Mexico

Staff

Migrants Housing New York

Trump Eagle Pass TX border

For The Washington Post

Asylum Seekers at the U.S. Southern Border

FTWP

Joe Biden

staff

Former President Donald J. Trump and Governor Greg Abbott tour Border Wall

Migrants are pouring into Ciudad Juarez in en effort to cross border

Border Chaos

Southwest border apprehensions by month

Follow section front redirects in Spectrum

Enable NLP source in PCS for load testing

Switch off the News Alerts Survey Widget when we have enough responses

Poll to determine if new LUF updates are available

Allows the winning A/B test variant to be turned on without Spectrum deployment

Show infinite scrolling sections in Assembler MultiView

Show option for NLP article summaries in Action Bar

A general feature flag for Recipe Features that aren't yet released

Feature flag for media team features that aren't yet released

Use new Orca video player for preroll plugin in Spectrum

Show the snow tracker (instead of the heat tracker) on Spectrum

As U.S. rushes to send military aid, Ukrainians applaud lobbying effort

An assassination plot on American soil reveals a darker side of Modi’s India

Scotland leader Humza Yousaf resigns in latest setback for independence 

A TikTok ban could also end short-form video as we’ve come to know it

Meta’s oversight body prepares to lay off workers

An AI blood test purports to diagnose postpartum depression

Is student loan debt an emergency? Take our quiz.

Humans might need to re-engineer the climate

The Fed’s fight against inflation needs to lose the dot plot

The new face of flooding

Where seas are rising at alarming speed 

Red carpet looks from the White House correspondents’ dinner

Ask Amy: Boyfriend’s CPA dad did my taxes wrong for years

Miss Manners: I think kindergarten graduations are ‘ridiculous’

Carolyn Hax: Is checking his phone the best way to prove he isn’t lying anymore?

Middle East conflict live updates: Britain urges Hamas to accept ‘very generous’ 40-day Gaza cease-fire deal

Jayden Daniels is latest in Washington’s checkered history of first-round QBs

The Rangers swept the Capitals, and it’s time for the new core to take charge

Election 2024 latest news: Trump, Biden returning to campaign trail this week

Trump and allies say Biden pays rent for ‘illegals’ in Michigan. Not true.

Tensions grow between Trump and Lake in Arizona race for Senate 

Eighty percent of Ukraine-Israel bill will be spent in U.S. or by U.S. military

Facts in the Trump courtroom v. ‘facts’ in the court of public opinion

The Rick Steves guide to life

The sad, stale state of in-flight vegetarian meals

How to train for a marathon on vacation

Soldiers reunite with their pets from overseas: ‘It meant everything to me’

Chiropractor works on giraffe, is nuzzled: ‘Giraffes are just giant dogs?’

An SUV was in flames on the highway. Strangers saved the driver.  

 Donald Trump Speaks During A Campaign Rally In Green Bay Wisconsin

See more coverage in your recommendations

Get the weekly Campaign Moment newsletter

Set alerts for major election developments

Election 2024

The Campaign Moment newsletter

Politics alerts

John Moore

Texas officials on Wednesday urged a U.S. appeals court to unblock a new law that would allow authorities to arrest and deport migrants, saying the state has been forced to take extraordinary measures to try to stop soaring levels of illegal border crossings.

The panel of judges with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit did not immediately issue a decision after an hour-long hearing on the state’s attempt to exercise immigration powers on the southern border that historically have been under federal control. The state law remains on hold, and the 5th Circuit has scheduled oral arguments for April 3 to consider the law’s constitutionality.

The court battle is the latest border policy clash between the Biden administration and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R), who says the president’s immigration record has been too lax and has hurt his state by creating incentives for illegal entries. Abbott has led a push by Republican-run states to take on a direct role in immigration enforcement that is playing out amid a presidential race in which border security has emerged as a vulnerability for <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/elections/candidates/joe-biden-2024/" target="_blank" class="contextual_link">President Biden</a> after three years of record crossings.

Nick Miroff

Erin Patrick  O'Connor

Illegal crossings along the Mexico border have averaged 2 million per year during Biden’s term, the highest levels the U.S. Border Patrol has ever recorded.

Wednesday’s hearing followed a day of legal whiplash in federal court for the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2024/03/19/texas-immigration-law-sb4/" target=_blank>Texas law, known as S.B. 4</a>. The Supreme Court briefly allowed the law to take effect, but the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/03/19/supreme-court-texas-immigration-law/" target=_blank>halted the state from enforcing it</a> late Tuesday.

Fifth Circuit Chief Judge Priscilla Richman asked during the hearing Wednesday how the Texas law would work in practice, listing scenarios that could quickly lead to confusion.

“This is the first time, it seems to me, that a state has claimed that they have the right to remove illegal aliens,” Richman said. “This is not something, a power, that historically has been exercised by states, has it?”

State officials said they would not deport migrants directly but would hand off detainees to federal officials or take them to border crossings with Mexico.

Richman asked what would happen if federal officials, as they have said, refused to carry out an order. She asked what would happen if a foreign national entered the United States via Canada and crossed through several states on their way to Texas. Could they be arrested and deported under Texas’s new law?

Aaron Nielson, the Texas solicitor general, said he wasn’t sure. In some cases, they might be arrested; in others, they might not. Nielson said the Texas law is “uncharted.”

Nielsen said Texas has the right to arrest people for entering the state illegally.

“Texas has decided that we are at the epicenter of this crisis,” he said. “We are on the front line, and we are going to do something about it.”

The law’s fate is yet another flash point in the nation’s polarized debate over immigration, which former president <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/donald-trump/" target="_blank" class="contextual_link">Donald Trump</a>, the likely Republican nominee in the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/elections/election-2024/" target="_blank" class="contextual_link">2024 election</a>, has made a central theme of his campaign against Biden.

Whatever the 5th Circuit decides, the status of the law is likely to go back before the Supreme Court.

The high court’s order Tuesday afternoon set off a fast-moving round of legal maneuvering in the lower court that has kept the law’s status in limbo.

The Supreme Court urged the 5th Circuit to decide quickly whether the law would remain in effect while litigation continues.

The brief order late Tuesday once again blocking the law did not explain the reasoning of the two judges — Richman, a nominee of George W. Bush, and Irma Carrillo Ramirez, a Biden nominee. The dissenting judge — Andrew Oldham, a Trump nominee — said he would have allowed the law to remain in effect before the hearing Wednesday.

“It’s ping-pong,” Efrén C. Olivares, director of strategic litigation and advocacy at the Southern Poverty Law Center, said in a phone interview, describing the back-and-forth rulings.

Olivares said it is unclear how soon the three-judge panel will rule, since a preliminary injunction from a lower court halting the law remains in place.

The law makes it a state crime for migrants to illegally cross the border and gives Texas officials the ability to carry out their own deportations to Mexico.

How they would do so remains unclear. The Mexican government has said it would not accept anyone sent back by Texas and condemned the law as “encouraging the separation of families, discrimination and racial profiling that violate the human rights of the migrant community.”

Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador on Wednesday referred to the Texas law as draconian.

“It disrespects human rights. It’s a completely dehumanizing law. It’s anti-Christian, unjust. It violates precepts and norms of human coexistence,” López Obrador said. “It doesn’t just violate international law but [the teachings of] the Bible. I say this because those who are applying these unjust, inhumane measures go to church. They forget that the Bible talks about treating the foreigner well and, of course, loving your neighbor.”

The Mexican government hasn’t said how it would respond  if Texas officials attempted to send migrants back over the border.

“We don’t want to reveal what we could do if in Texas, the governor and these anti-immigrant, anti-Mexican types attempt to carry out deportations,” López Obrador said. “Let me be clear, we will not accept deportations from the Texas government. And we will not just sit around with our arms crossed.”

The Texas law was passed last year as part of Abbott’s push to expand the state’s role in immigration enforcement by busing migrants to Northern cities, mobilizing thousands of National Guard troops and lining the banks of the Rio Grande with barriers and razor wire.

The Supreme Court’s <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/23a814_febh.pdf" target=_blank>decision</a> drew dissent from the three liberal justices, two of whom said the majority was inviting “further chaos and crisis in immigration enforcement.”

“This law will disrupt sensitive foreign relations, frustrate the protection of individuals fleeing persecution, hamper active federal enforcement efforts, undermine federal agencies’ ability to detect and monitor imminent security threats, and deter noncitizens from reporting abuse or trafficking,” wrote Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson.

The brief seesaw implementation of the law Tuesday appeared to illustrate the dissenting justices’ concerns about legal chaos. Texas Republicans celebrated the Supreme Court ruling on social media Tuesday and said S.B. 4 was in full effect, only to be stopped again hours later.

The Texas law carries state criminal penalties of up to six months in jail for migrants who illegally enter from Mexico. Those who reenter illegally after a deportation could face felony charges and a 10-to-20-year prison sentence. Texas lawmakers also empowered state judges to order deportations to Mexico and allowed local law enforcement personnel to carry out those orders. Judges may drop state charges if a migrant agrees to return to Mexico voluntarily.

Luis Miranda, a spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security, said federal immigration agencies do not have the authority to assist Texas with the implementation of the state law. The only deportations that U.S. agents are allowed to conduct must involve federal orders, he said.

“Immigration is within the exclusive purview of the federal government,” Miranda said in a statement.

As Texas fights to implement its crackdown, Iowa’s Republican-dominated state legislature has passed a similar measure, though narrower in scope. Iowa’s bill empowers state authorities to arrest and issue deportation orders to immigrants in Iowa who had been deported or denied entry into the United States. Gov. Kim Reynolds (R) has said she will sign it into law.

U.S. District Judge David A. Ezra temporarily blocked the Texas law last month, saying it was probably unconstitutional and “could open the door to each state passing its own version of immigration laws.” Ezra said the law intruded into federal matters even more than an Arizona immigration law that the Supreme Court <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/supreme-court-rules-on-arizona-immigration-law/2012/06/25/gJQA0Nrm1V_story.html?itid=lk_inline_manual_26" target=_blank>partially struck down in 2012</a>.

But the 5th Circuit quickly froze Ezra’s decision without explanation and said the Texas law could be enforced, at least temporarily, unless the Supreme Court weighed in.

Richman said at the hearing Wednesday that Texas’s argument echoed late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia’s dissent in the court’s ruling over Arizona’s 2010 immigration law. The majority struck down parts of it, but Scalia had disagreed, saying states should be able to exclude people who are there unlawfully.

“Yes, your honor, I think we are saying that,” Nielson said. “And I think trespass is a great example, because Texas does arrest people who come across the border and trespass on Texas property.”

“And you don’t need Senate Bill 4 to do that,” the judge interjected. “You’ve got trespassing laws.”

“Correct,” Nielson said. “But if that is lawful, then I don’t see why this extra provision would be unlawful.”

The Supreme Court in 2012 struck down parts of Arizona’s law, then the most sweeping state immigration law in the country, citing the federal government’s broad powers over immigration. But the high court let some provisions stand, including one that allowed police to question a person about their immigration status.

Arizona Republicans in the state legislature passed a measure in recent weeks to make it a crime for migrants to cross the border illegally. Gov. Katie Hobbs (D) vetoed it, saying attacking immigration is “anti business.”

Daniel Tenny, a Justice Department lawyer arguing the case for the Biden administration Wednesday, said the federal government has clear authority over immigration law and is acting to enforce it. He urged the judges to keep Ezra’s ruling in place blocking the law from taking effect. If not, he said the government would appreciate time to prepare to appeal to the Supreme Court.

Ann E. Marimow, Arelis R. Hernández in El Paso and Mary Beth Sheridan in Mexico City contributed to this report.

2015 French-American Foundation Immigration Journalism Award

University of Massachusetts at Amherst, BA in journalism

University of Texas at Austin, MA in Latin American studies

Maria Sacchetti covers immigration for the Washington Post, including U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the court system. She previously reported for the Boston Globe, where her work led to the release of several immigrants from jail. She lived for several years in Latin America and is fluent in Spanish.

Maria Sacchetti

Maria Moors Cabot Prize, 2017

Overseas Press Club award, 2015

Overseas Press Club citation, 2012

Nancy Dickerson Whitehead Award, 2008

University of California at Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism, MJ, 2006

University of California at Santa Cruz, BA, 2000

Nick Miroff covers the Department of Homeland Security for The Washington Post, with a focus on immigration enforcement and the southern border. He was a Post foreign correspondent in Latin America from 2010 to 2017, and has been a staff writer since 2006.

Texas immigration law back in federal court after whiplash rulings

the-washington-post

Getty Images

Balance of Power Pair

U.S. House Aggregate

U.S. Senate Aggregate

name

washpost

prism://prism.query/site,/immigration&limit=20

Immigration

Immigration articles from The Washington Post.

prism://prism.query/site,/national-security&limit=20

Sign up for Fact Checker, our weekly review of what's true, false or in-between in politics.

National Security

The Washington Post's coverage of national security issues, including the military, intelligence, justice, and foreign policy.

prism://prism.query/site,/world/americas&limit=20

Americas

The Washington Post provides the latest information and analysis of breaking news stories from the South America and Canada. Includes news coverage from Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Colombia, Chile, Argentina, Peru and Venezuela.

prism://prism.query/site-articles-only,/world/&limit=20

World

The Washington Post World section provides information and analysis of breaking world news stories. In addition to our world news and video, Post World News offers discussions and blogs on major international news and economic issues.

prism://prism.query/ap-articles-by-site-id,/world

prism://prism.query/site-articles-only,/national&limit=20

National

The Washington Post's national news coverage. Get the latest national news, featuring national security, science and the courts. Read breaking national news headlines from across the U.S.

prism://prism.query/site-articles-only,/politics&limit=20

Cut through the 2024 election noise. Get The Campaign Moment newsletter.

Politics

Post Politics from The Washington Post is the source for political news headlines, in-depth politics coverage and political opinion, plus breaking news on the biden administration and White House, Congress, the Supreme Court, elections and more.