By Jarryd Jaeger – The Postmillennial
On Monday, the Supreme Court extended a temporary block on Texas’ SB 4, legislation that would make crossing the border an arrestable offense.
Conservative Justice Samuel Alito issued the order, marking the third time he has interjected to prevent the law from going into effect.
According to NBC News, the law is now on hold “pending further order.”
In a lower court ruling, Judge David Alen Ezra argued that, “the Supremacy Clause and Supreme Court precedent affirm that states may not exercise immigration enforcement power except as authorized by the federal government,” and that, “SB 4 conflicts with key provisions of federal immigration law, to the detriment of the United States’ foreign relations and treaty obligations.”
He went on to suggest that, “surges in immigration do not constitute an ‘invasion’ within the meaning of the Constitution, nor is Texas engaging in war by enforcing SB 4,” and that, “to allow Texas to permanently supersede federal directives on the basis of an invasion would amount to nullification of federal law and authority—a notion that is antithetical to the Constitution and has been unequivocally rejected by federal courts since the Civil War.”
Proponents of SB4, including Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, have argued that the law should be viewed as complementary to federal legislation.
Paxton said that the Constitution “recognizes that Texas has the sovereign right to defend itself from violent transnational cartels that flood the state with fentanyl, weapons, and all manner of brutality.”