DALLAS — Attorneys representing the state of Texas will return to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans on Wednesday morning to try to convince a three-judge panel that Senate Bill 4 – also known as SB4 – does not violate the U.S. Constitution.
This is the controversial Texas law that lets state and local police detain undocumented immigrants who cross into the U.S. somewhere other than a port of entry. For more than a century, courts have ruled that immigration enforcement is a federal responsibility.
“I think it’s a landmark case. It’s a very big case. And it’s a departure from what states have typically gotten into,” said state Rep. David Spiller, R-Jacksboro, on Sunday’s Inside Texas Politics. “I think it’s kind of an idea of we want to measure twice and cut once. We want to make sure that we’re on the right track here if we rule in favor of this.”
The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has refused to let SB4 take effect while judges consider that very question, having already peppered the Texas Solicitor General about why the law is necessary. It is unusual because the Fifth Circuit, as it is often called, is well-known as a conservative court.
But Wednesday at 9 a.m., attorneys representing the state of Texas and the U.S. Department of Justice will present their arguments on the constitutionality of SB4. Each side gets 30 minutes before Chief Judge Priscilla Richman (appointed by George W. Bush) and judges Andrew S. Oldham (appointed by Donald Trump), and Irma Carrillo Ramirez (appointed by Joe Biden).
Spiller authored the version of this bill that the Texas House of Representatives passed last year. He said he is not surprised by the questions from judges and expects a decision to take a while.
SB4 has led to a lot of confusion in Texas lately.
Initially, a top official with the Texas Department of Public Safety said the agency would only enforce Senate Bill 4 along the border, that, despite the law being statewide, it was “not designed for interior enforcement.”
But days later, Texas DPS said that it would enforce SB4 statewide, if the circumstances are right.
“I believe that 95% or more of the enforcement of SB 4 will occur within 50 miles of the border,” Rep. Spiller said. “The nature of this for illegal entry is you’re focusing on people actually crossing into our state from a foreign country. It’s very difficult, if not sometimes impossible, to prove that unless you actually see or otherwise know where they cross, when they cross, how they cross, who was with them and be able to prove that.”
Rep. Spiller said he doesn’t think the law was written too broadly.
Spiller added that lawmakers did not “want to tie law enforcement’s hands” either by limiting arrests to the border because a smuggling operation may have already made it farther north into the state.
On Sunday’s Inside Texas Politics, Spiller explained why he says asylum seekers are not impacted by SB4 and shared his thoughts on Mexico refusing to take migrants that a state magistrate orders to be deported.
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