Last week, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals handed down a big win for border security. They lifted a lower court’s injunction on Texas Senate Bill 4 from 2023, which allows the state to engage in border enforcement measures.
Texas SB 4 created state-level criminal penalties for illegal entry into Texas and allowed state and local police to arrest individuals suspected of illegal entry or reentry. It also permitted state judges to order the return of those who illegally entered Texas through Mexico.
SB 4 was passed to compensate for the overwhelming invasion at the Texas border that happened throughout the Biden administration. Today, this helps position the state to deal with future border crises. The law was blocked despite its passage due to lawsuits from a variety of left-wing immigrant advocacy groups, El Paso County, and the Biden administration.
A federal district court judge granted the plaintiffs an injunction against the law in February of 2024. This injunction prevented Texas from enforcing the law, but the Fifth Circuit reversed it and found that the plaintiffs lacked standing to bring the case. Legal standing means that they did not demonstrate that they were actually harmed by the issue being litigated.
The left-wing coalition of plaintiffs brought these lawsuits as an attempt to bypass the authority of the Texas Legislature and change policy to fit their ideology. SB 4 can still be challenged based on its constitutionality in the future, but the Left will have to wait until someone actually has legal standing to challenge the law, and they will likely not be able to block the law unless they actually win the case and SB 4 is ruled unconstitutional.
This ruling is a win for the rule of law because it prevents activist lawyers from misusing the legal system: Texas law should be determined by elected representatives, not judges. The judiciary’s function is to assess whether laws are constitutional, not grant ideological groups control over policy before they have proven a law to be unconstitutional.
Once the Fifth Circuit’s ruling goes into effect, SB 4 will grant Texas a much-needed immigration crackdown. Agencies like ICE and the Border Patrol, which had been overwhelmed by the Biden border invasion, can now redistribute assets to catch and deport more illegals while state police and courts in Texas help them share the load.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton called the ruling “a major win for public safety and law and order”. Texans for Strong Borders applauds this ruling and supports Senate Bill 4 as much-needed immigration reform that will protect Texas communities.