The SB 4 court battle 

On Dec. 18, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed SB 4 by state Sen. Charles Perry (R-Lubbock), which led to a complaint from the U.S. Justice Department.

On Jan. 3, the U.S. filed a lawsuit against the state of Texas, Abbott, the Texas Department of Public Safety and its director, Steven C. McCraw, complaining that SB 4 “creates purported state immigration crimes for unlawful entry and unlawful reentry, permits state judges and magistrates to order the removal of noncitizens from the country, and mandates that state officials carry out those removal orders.”

On Feb. 29, Senior U.S. District Judge David Alan Ezra temporarily blocked the Texas law. The bill was originally set to go into effect March 5.

Texas immediately appealed to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals after Ezra’s ruling.

On March 19, the U.S. Supreme Court gave the green light on the bill, allowing SB 4 to take effect immediately in the state for several hours. But later that day, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals blocked the bill and scheduled a last-minute hearing.

“There was a back and forth between various legal systems,” Alvaro Corral, an assistant professor in the UTRGV Department of Political Science told The Rider during a phone call on March 5. “… The [U.S. Supreme Court], of course, allowed for the law to not so much to go into effect but rather they allowed for the lower appeals court to rehear the case because, of course, they said that they had made a procedural error. So they simply had them rehear the case again.”

During the hearing, the panel of judges did not issue a decision and the state law remains on hold.

SB 4 prevents police from arresting migrants in public or private schools, churches and health-care facilities. However, it does not restrict arrests on college or university campuses.

If SB 4 goes into effect, people could be charged with a class B misdemeanor, which carries a punishment of up to six months in jail if an officer believes a person illegally crossed the Texas-Mexico border.

If someone were to cross from Mexico without authorization again, that misdemeanor would now be a second-degree felony of up to 20 years in prison upon conviction. A judge could drop the charges if the person agrees to return to Mexico.

–Fatima Gamez Lopez