U.S. Supreme Court allows Texas to enforce controversial immigration law

HOUSTON, March 19 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. conservative-majority Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected an emergency request by the Joe Biden administration, allowing the state of Texas to temporally enforce its controversial law allowing Texas police to arrest migrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border illegally.

As a result, the state law can take effect while litigation continues in lower courts, meaning the legal battle is not over and the law could still be blocked at a later date.

Texas Republican Governor Greg Abbott hailed the court order, calling it "clearly a positive development."

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement that the law "will not only make communities in Texas less safe, it will also burden law enforcement and sow chaos and confusion at our southern border."

"The court gives a green light to a law that will upend the longstanding federal-state balance of power and sow chaos," liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in a dissenting opinion.

The Biden administration had argued that immigration enforcement is solely within the jurisdiction of the federal government.

Immigrant rights groups filed a lawsuit against the Texas law one day after Abbott signed the bill in December.

According to the plaintiffs, the bill violates the federal constitution since Congress has given the federal government sole authority over immigration enforcement. It will also prevent immigrants from requesting asylum in the country, a civil right they have regardless of how they enter the United States.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Texas Civil Rights Project filed the lawsuit in an Austin federal court on behalf of El Paso County, the largest border county in Texas, as well as two other immigrant rights organizations -- El Paso-based Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center and Austin-based American Gateways.