Sotomayor Rebukes Supreme Court Colleagues For Lifting Hold On Texas Migrant Law

The justice delivered a blistering dissent after the high court's conservative majority let the state law go into effect, though it was soon put back on hold.

Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor gave a strict rebuke of her colleagues Tuesday for inviting “chaos and crisis” after the high court lifted a pause on controversial legislation giving Texas broad powers to enforce immigration law at the U.S.-Mexico border.

The court’s conservative majority ruled to reject an emergency application from President Joe Biden’s administration, allowing Texas Senate Bill 4 to go into effect while the question of its legality plays out in lower courts. But S.B. 4 quickly went back on hold later Tuesday following an appeals court decision.

The legislation would permit Texas law enforcement officials to arrest anyone they suspect of crossing the border illegally, charge them with crimes ranging from misdemeanors to felonies, and punish them with jail time or deportation.

The Supreme Court’s 6-3 order, which was praised by Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, did not weigh in on the law’s constitutionality. But the ruling drew blistering dissent from Sotomayor, as well as fellow liberal Justices Ketanji Brown Jackson and Elena Kagan.

In a dissent joined by Jackson, Sotomayor wrote that the high court invited “further chaos and crisis in immigration enforcement” by allowing the Texas law to go into effect without first giving “careful and reasoned consideration” to its constitutionality, since the issues underlying arguments over S.B. 4 are serious and unprecedented.