‘No reasoned analysis’: Sotomayor slams appeals court and scolds fellow justices for ‘sowing chaos’ by allowing Texas to arrest and deport illegal crossers

FILE – Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor speaks with retired U.S. Appeals Court Judge Thomas Griffith, not shown, during a panel discussion at the winter meeting of the National Governors Association, Feb. 23, 2024, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein, File)

Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor chastised six of her fellow justices for inviting “chaos and crisis” by upholding an “unreasoned” ruling and allowing Texas to regulate immigration at its borders over the objection of the federal government.

The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 Tuesday to allow Texas S.B. 4 to go into effect while the battle over its underlying legality plays out in court. The law, which authorizes Texas law enforcement to arrest anyone suspected of illegal border crossing and charge them with crimes ranging from misdemeanors to felonies, then to prosecute and punish with jail time or returning them to Mexico, is the harshest part of Republican Gov. Greg Abbott’s anti-immigration “Operation Lone Star.” Abbott’s policies have already been blamed for contributing to the death of a migrant woman and two children who drowned when Texas authorities prevented federal Border Patrol agents from rendering aid.

At its core, the legal battle over the law is a turf war. The federal government’s position is that immigration regulation is squarely within its sole jurisdiction. Texas, by contrast, says that it has a right to protect itself from “invasion” by those crossing the U.S.-Mexico border illegally.

On Feb. 29, Senior U.S. District Judge David Alan Ezra ruled against Texas, holding that S.B. 4 violates both the Supremacy Clause and Supreme Court precedent, conflicts directly with federal immigration law, and offends American foreign relations and treaty obligations. A few days later, the New Orleans-based Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed Ezra’s ruling, then immediately issued a seven-day administrative stay of its ruling. The Supreme Court extended that stay until March 11, then vacated it Tuesday, thereby allowing the law to go into effect.

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