A federal judge in Austin on Thursday temporarily barred Texas from putting key parts of a 2023 immigration statute into effect, concluding those provisions conflict with federal immigration law and impermissibly encroach on the federal government's authority over immigration, naturalization and removal proceedings.
The order, issued as a preliminary injunction at the request of the American Civil Liberties Union and other organizations, came in a class-action lawsuit filed on behalf of thousands of noncitizens who could be impacted by the statute's measures. The judge who issued the ruling is U.S. District Judge David Ezra, who was appointed by Republican President Ronald Reagan.
"At the broadest level, SB 4 conflicts with federal immigration law because it provides state officials the power to enforce federal law without federal supervision," Ezra wrote in the opinion.
Attorneys for the plaintiffs said they brought the suit to prevent several provisions of the law from taking effect. Spokespeople for Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton, whose office is defending the legislation, did not respond to requests for comment.
The new lawsuit follows a complex litigation history. Earlier in the legal process, a federal appeals court in April overturned an injunction that had been issued during Democratic President Joe Biden's administration and which had kept the Republican-backed measure known as SB 4 from being enforced. The Trump administration later dropped a separate case that the Biden administration had brought challenging the law. Immigrant-rights organizations that had sued also faced a setback when the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals determined those groups lacked standing to pursue relief.
To address standing concerns identified by the appeals court, the recent complaint before Judge Ezra was filed on behalf of noncitizens who could be directly subject to four central provisions of the statute, which was set to take effect on Friday. Among the contested measures are a provision that would make it a state crime for individuals to reenter the United States after deportation - even if those individuals had federal permission to reenter or had since obtained lawful permanent resident status - and a provision granting Texas magistrate judges the authority to issue deportation orders.
Lawyers representing the plaintiffs issued a joint statement praising the court's decision. "Texas cannot override the U.S. Constitution and should stop wasting time attempting to do so," they said.
The injunction preserves the status quo while the class-action litigation proceeds, leaving unresolved how the broader questions about state-federal powers over immigration will ultimately be decided. The court's ruling centers on the concept that federal immigration statutes preempt conflicting state law, and on the separation of roles between federal immigration authorities and state officials.