Fifth Circuit Blocks Texas Immigration Law After SCOTUS Vacated Stay
The panel will hear arguments from Texas this morning as to why the law should go into effect as litigation continues.
A three-judge panel of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 to block a Texas immigration law hours after the Supreme Court refused to intervene.
The judges did not provide a reason for their ruling.
Senate Bill 4 allows state law enforcement to arrest and detain illegal immigrants who cross the border outside of legal ports of entry.
The Supreme Court, with a vote of 4-3, decided to vacate the stay and return the lawsuit to the lower courts.
“Merits briefing on Texas’s challenge to the District Court’s injunction of S.B. 4 is currently underway,” wrote the justices. “If a decision does not issue soon, the applicants may return to this Court.”
The panel will hear Texas’s arguments on Wednesday morning and will decide whether to allow the law to go into effect as litigation continues.
Circuit Judge Andrew Oldham dissented from the other two judges.
“A stay preserves the status quo while an appellate court reviews the lawfulness of that alteration,” wrote Oldham. “earlier today, the Supreme Court of the United States restored an administrative stay under Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 8.”
Oldham said he “would leave that stay in place pending” the oral arguments on Wednesday.
No matter what happens, though, the Fifth Circuit will continue hearing arguments about the constitutionality of the law for the next few weeks.
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Comments
So, the Supreme Court is no longer ‘Supreme?’ Got it. It’s probably all moot now as Mexico has announced that they’re simply going to refuse to allow any of these interlopers (deported by the state of Texas) back into Mexico, which makes deporting them difficult.
Abbott could always use the TNG to secure a beachhead head inside Mexico.
Huh? What are you talking about? In what way is the supreme court no longer supreme? This panel did exactly what the supreme court wanted it to do. It lifted the administrative stay of the district court injunction, and tomorrow the 5th circuit will decide whether to grant a proper stay pending appeal. Whichever way it decides, the loser can then appeal to the supreme court in the appropriate manner.
I was confused about it at first. The news coverage hasn’t been very good.
I’m not a lawyer but I would appreciate if someone with legal expertise could explain how a lower court can nullify a supreme court’s ruling.
what enforcement mechanisms does SCOTUS have?
It can’t and it didn’t. Anyone who reports that it did is lying to you.
I’ll take a crack at it after reading the linked ruling from SCOTUS in the story, but I admit that I’m a bit unfamiliar with this particular field.
So, if I understand the issue correctly, the lower court had put in place an ADMINISTRATIVE stay on the Texas law – an administrative stay which is supposed to be used only temporarily to give the court time to do an evaluation to determine if they wanted to issue an actual permanent stay, or not, which should normally be evaluated under the ‘Nken v Holder’ precedent (whether they are likely to prevail on the merits, whether an applicant irreparably injured without a stay, and some other factors).
Normally I do not believe that administrative stays are not appealable, as they are essentially saying ‘hey you need to hold your horses while we research this issue’, and are supposed to make an actual ruling on a normal stay under the Nken precedent, which then would be appealable.
However, the lower court decided that they were just going to keep extending the administrative stay multiple times and, by all appearances, were just jerking Texas around and dragging it out as long as possible.
So if I understand correctly the Supreme Court vacated the ADMINISTRATIVE stay (but I guess temporarily stayed their vacation of the stay? It’s confusing), and effectively told the lower court, ‘stop this BS and issue an actual stay on the merits, and if you haven’t done so promptly, we WILL issue a judgement’.
So the lower court was forced to do what should have been done quite a while ago, and followed proper procedure, the SCOTUS intervention would have been unnecessary.
However, I’m confused, because the link provided in the story saying that the law was blocked 2-1 by the 5th Circuit, ACTUALLY says ‘Oral argument is scheduled on March 20, 2024, to consider the
Appellants’ Motion to Stay Preliminary Injunction Pending Appeal. A
majority of the panel has concluded that the administrative stay entered by a
motions panel on March 2, 2024, should be lifted. Accordingly,
IT IS ORDERED that the administrative stay of this appeal previously
entered by a motions panel on March 2, 2024, is DISSOLVED.’
So I’m confused – is that just a wrong link? Did they put in place the stay after the oral arguments (which were supposed to be today), and they just didn’t link that decision?
It sounds like they did enter a stay on the Texas law on the Nken factors, so we will see.
Not quite.
1. The district court that is hearing the challenge to the law issued an injunction so Texas can’t enforce the law until the trial is held on the merits.
2. Texas went to the 5th circuit for a stay of the injunction, so it could enforce the law until the trial. But the 5th circuit instead issued an administrative stay while it figured out whether to issue a real stay. That meant Texas could start enforcing the law.
3. The USA asked the supreme court to stay the 5th circuit’s stay. Alito, who caught the call, immediately gave an administrative stay of the 5th circuit’s administrative stay of the district court’s injunction. Therefore Texas could not enforce the law. As you say, an administrative stay is just the court saying “we haven’t read the papers, we know nothing about this case, so let’s freeze it for a few days until we know whether a stay is justified”.
4. This Supreme Court administrative stay was extended twice, the second time this Monday (if I recall correctly). That was just so they could think about it, and by this Tuesday they’d thought enough and decided not to stay the 5th circuit’s administrative stay. As Barrett explained, this had nothing to do with anything, it was simply a matter of the Supreme Court not wanting to make a habit of messing with circuit courts’ administrative stays. It’s never done so before and didn’t propose to start now.
But she noted that it’s really odd that the 5th circuit’s administrative stay is still in effect; surely they’ve had time to read the papers by now and the 5th should get off its behind and either issue a real stay or deny it. And that if it doesn’t do so PDQ then the USA should come back to SCOTUS for relief.
This meant that the SCOTUS administrative stay was now lifted, leaving the 5th circuit’s administrative stay in place, and thus the injunction was not in effect and the law could be enforced while the 5th circuit was considering whether to issue a real, appealable stay.
5. A 5th circuit panel immediately met and, noting that the hearing on the motion for a real stay was going to be heard on Wednesday, dissolved the administrative stay, so that the injunction came back into effect and the law cannot be enforced.
6. On Wednesday the 5th circuit heard arguments on whether to issue the stay, and will soon decide. If it grants Texas the stay then the law can be enforced, but the USA is sure to appeal right back to SCOTUS. If it denies the stay, then the injunction remains in force, and the law can’t be enforced, but Texas is likely to appeal right back to SCOTUS.
7. So no matter what the 5th does, this is going back to SCOTUS. The 3 leftist justices have already said how they will vote. They will vote to keep the district court’s injunction in place. If the 5th grants the stay they will vote to dissolve it; if it doesn’t they will vote not to grant one. But the other six justices have not given any indication of their thoughts on the matter. We just don’t know.
This is the process. The process allows for a veneer respectability while the original point of the whole thing moves along. The process allows the destruction of illegal immigration to continue. The damage has been done.
Human traffickers are smiling.
At best border security will only prevent future harm. Even then we still have lots of illegally present from Visa overstay where folks came for tourism, work, school and didn’t depart at the end of their allotted time.
To begin to undo the existing harms will require far more vigorous effort in the interior. Every single govt interaction by an illegal alien gonna need to be a decision point for that illegal alien; do I get a DL/ID, file for benefits of some kind, register my kid for school and face potential deportation or no? Industries known for employment of illegal aliens gotta be scrutinized and employers questioned, docs/records subpoenaed then fined and jailed if guilty.
Basically everyone associated with an illegal alien gonna have to weigh whether or not they want to go to jail for aiding the illegal alien. This will not be a popular set of policies in certain quarters, in essence reverse the last 50 years + of many looking the other way and create an incredibly unwelcome climate in which true fear of consequences exists for every illegal alien. Lots of leftists and some bleeding hearts will argue ‘oh that’s too harsh’. Tough cookies.
Very true. One of the surest ways to unwind a Republic. Another way is the concept of entitlement and unsustainable debt.
I’m very confused. The post speaks of the SC supporting the stay, then of it lifting the stay, and I’m not sure which one the speakers in the piece are even responding to. I thought I did after the first couple of paragraphs, but then I kept reading. Yeesh.
This is what happens when you start practicing lawfare, I guess. Especially a retaliatory action against a deeply entrenched (or en-tunneled) enemy.
We seem to have become a struggling Republic under attack by a rotting democracy. Judges may yet cause us to erupt in civil war.
1. The district court, which is the only court considering the merits of the underlying challenge to the Texas law, issued an injunction against enforcing the law until the case is over.
2. Texas appealed the injunction to the 5th circuit, and asked for a stay pending the appeal. The 5th circuit didn’t do that; instead it granted an administrative stay on the injunction until it could consider whether to grant a proper stay. Administrative stays are supposed to be only for a few days, until the court has had time to read the papers and decide whether to grant a stay.
3. The federal government appealed to the Supreme Court to stay the administrative stay. The Supreme Court immediately issued an administrative stay of its own, which was extended twice, the second time only yesterday. Like the one from the 5th circuit, it was just an administrative stay while it had a chance to decide what to do.
4. Today it decided that it’s not willing to interfere with a circuit court’s administrative stays, but it warned the 5th circuit that such stays are not supposed to last long, and it had better act PDQ to either lift its stay or issue a proper stay, which can be appealed.
5. As it happens the 5th circuit is considering the application for a stay of the district court’s injunction tomorrow. So a panel of the 5th circuit dissolved the administrative stay that the Supreme Court was unwilling to override but complained had been in place for too long. Thus the injunction remains in force until tomorrow’s hearing.
6. Tomorrow the 5th circuit will consider whether to grant a real (not administrative) stay of the district court injunction, or to deny it and let the injunction continue. Either way, the loser will probably go straight back to SCOTUS.
Oof. Thank you.
Thanks for clarifying!
This is yet another example of how bad reporting is when it comes to legal issues. You pretty much cannot ever rely on media reports. You have to go to the source documents and read for yourself.
It’s the same with non-legal issues except there might not be a paper trail you can use to get the facts.
As a former old school, professional journalist when that was an honest trade, I would make two somewhat contradictory points. Hey, kids, life is a study in paradox, so there. If you haven’t grasped that, my question would be, “How old are you, 19?”
1. The average reporter is a generalist, and complexity is genuinely challenging even for the conscientious ones. Especially when its breaking news.
2. The media’s diligence and neutrality has nosedived in the last 2o years. In this particular case, I can grant a short term pass given the rapid ace and legal complexity. My real complaint is when they have enough time to check it out, and when the errors are all in one direction.
On the legal reporting front, the Colorado ballot case would be a very good example of rampant media bias. But not on this one. This is hard to follow, even in good faith and even with some legal background.
You choose your words with mercy. When describing somebody that doesn’t know any field in any depth, you focus on the equality of their levels of understanding and say they’re a “generalist” rather than “clueless” or “dumb”.
The old definition of an educated person (don’t hear this much anymore in these woke times) is that they understand one field in depth and a bit about lots of others. The one field in depth is essential, because it provides perspective for deeper understanding of others as well.
End of rant about a side issue in your post. Agree though that reporters wouldn’t have enough time to do much but repeat things word-for-word from their source on breaking stories.
I chose my words with realism and experience. Everyone is “clueless” about a long list of things. Ignorance isn’t the sin; the sin is the refusal to learn, along with humility about one’s limits.
Old school journalistic conventions built in some buffers, but old school journalism is gasping its last breaths. But even a conscientious old-school journalist would have difficulty with THIS particular story as it is breaking.
In THIS CASE, the courts are playing ping pong, and even an intelligent, balanced reporter who wants to get it right will have difficulty following it on deadline. In the old school, there would be followups to pick through the back and forth.
Do NOT view what I wrote as any sort of justification or excuse for the trash heap that the media have become, but only the take from someone who did it for a living and did it the right way.
That includes reporting here on LI. A couple of weeks ago, when the Hawaii Supreme Court ruled on a RKBA case, there was some really terrible reporting by right-wing sources, including by LI’s own James Nault. As a result we still have commenters here who are convinced that the HI court thought it could overrule the 2nd amendment, or that it thought the “Spirit of Aloha” (which is a real legal thing in Hawaii) applied to it, etc. There was no truth to any of this reporting.
Misinformation is not limited to the degraded media. The various wings with internet presence hardly ever even know old school journalistic guard rails. Having my experience, education, and fiercely fact-oriented inclination, I rarely fall for any of it no matter where it comes from, but I have been fooled a time or three.
One of many red flags is when this or that internet based outfit does nothing but post a video in which someone yammers for an hour on his (95% of it is from men) politics. This is much more common among the right wingers, and from time to time I will leave a comment saying that if they couldn’t include a transcript then it couldn’t have been important.
There are exceptions, almost always when only a video can tell the story. Other than that woe betide the zealot who does nothing but rant in front of a camera. It’s one reason why I studiously avoid national TV news and commentary.
Me too. I refuse to devote half an hour or an hour to watch someone talk, without even any idea of what he’s going to say.
Thank you Milhouse!
Thanks @Milhouse all the Stays were running together for me. I hate Legal Speak, it’s just a complicated way of making sure anyone outside the field is so confused they give up before trying to understand.
As predicted. The borders are wide open again. Gotta make sure the fentanyl keeps flooding the country and MS-13 can murder and rape to their hearts’ content!
And does anyone seriously believe Chief Justice John “It’s a tax!” Roberts will do anything to offend his Uniparty masters? Of course he will find a way to drag Gorsuch or Coney or Kavanaugh (or all three) into his dirty schemes.
Remember, it isn’t over until the illegal is on lifetime welfare.
Cloward-Piven, take a bow.
An Illinois judge just ruled than an illegal can legally carry an illegally obtained firearm.
Background check required? Yes for citizens, no for for illegals
Must purchase from a licensed firearms dealer? Yes for citizens, no for illegals
Can felons possess a firearm? No for citizens, yes for illegals
Paperwork required for citizens? Yes for citizens, no for illegals (undocumented means no documents required, duh!)
None of this is true. You are either making it up yourself or someone has lied to you. I think you’re making it up yourself.
Yes, a federal judge has correctly ruled that the RKBA, like all fundamental constitutional rights, applies to everyone in the USA, not just citizens, and not just those here legally. Thus illegal aliens who are not otherwise excluded from owning arms are entitled to do so under the exact same terms as anyone else.
That means background checks are still required when buying from a dealer.
Illegals do not need to buy from a licensed dealer, just like anyone else, unless state law says otherwise (which it does in Illinois).
Illegals who are violent felons may not possess firearms just like all such felons.
The same paperwork is required for illegals as for anyone else. (“Undocumented” does not mean no documents required. It means that a person has no documents, but that’s never been true; illegal immigrants usually have plenty of documents.) Since Illinois requires a Firearm Owners ID in order to purchase, it must issue them to illegal immigrants on the same terms as it does to anyone else.
But the relative penalty for failing to follow laws is much less when you’re an illegal. You’re already skirting the edge of the law, so what’s a bit more of that. Besides, you’re very hard to find. So you can escape the consequences of your actions. Someone who has built a legal life in this country has a lot to lose; they have much less.
Morally also, they deserve what they have less. If it gets taken away from them by our system, I don’t mind as much because why were they here in the first place. A healthy body has defenses against intruders.
But back to the practical side, there’s less keeping them from offending. So it’s not apples-to-apples.
The law has to treat everyone equally. Peabody’s complaint is that illegals get special treatment and are exempt from laws that apply to everyone else, and that is just not true.
The blowback to this is predictable – in patriot counties, juries are going to refuse to convict anyone who murders an illegal immigrant. In occupied counties, illegal immigrants will run rampant murdering citizens.
If the executive branch won’t fulfill its duties, citizens eventually will.
Sign up for jury duty, patriots.
But in this country, Derek Chauvin was convicted of murder for detaining a drugged-up suspect who had been fleeing with great strength and agility, and he had already called for medical help.
So we’re not a patriot country. Trump rubbed out the last of it by not giving a damn about the J6 defendants he enticed to DC, until it became convenient to give a damn on the campaign trail. I don’t know what we are, but we’re so far from that it’s not even worth mentioning.
People crossing a border uninvited is not “immigration”. (Some dare say it’s an invasion)
A State stopping illegal border crossers is not enacting or enforcing “immigration law”.
It’s so simple. Unless you’ve gone to law school and hit the political lottery by winning a seat on a federal court.
Because people are cowards, chronic invasion is tolerated in a way that acute invasion is not.
People crossing a border with the intent to stay is the very definition of “immigration”. It makes no difference whether they are doing so legally or illegally.
Someone driving without a license is still driving; someone practicing medicine without a license is still practicing medicine; someone carrying a gun without a license (where required) is still carrying; and someone immigrating without a license is still immigrating.
I’d say it’s “migration”. Immigration is a formal legal process they are attempting to replace with the cartel’s version. Since they are in fact migrating in, but not going thru the process described as immigration, how about “in-migration”, or more descriptively, “illegal migration”?
That is just not true. You can make up your own language if you like, and make words in it mean whatever you like, but in English, as Rush Limbaugh used to say, words have meanings, and you’re not entitled to just redefine them to suit yourself. In the English language “immigration” is not a legal process. It simply means migrating in to a place; “emigration” means migrating out of a place. Therefore every immigrant is also an emigrant, and vice versa; which word you use depends on your perspective. “Migrant” is the objective word, from a neutral perspective. “Migrant” can also mean a nomad, someone who is neither immigrating nor emigrating anywhere but simply moving around, with no intent to stay anywhere in particular.
The enforcers with the guns and the F-15’s behind those guns believe the “law school” version. Might as well accept it and have a better chance of finding things that are possible to accomplish in the existing system. Thinking the system is something else will just give more opportunities to the subverters.
So we’ll know what the decision is by Friday latest?
So is this the game now? We let the invasion continue unabated while rotating the “authorities” allowing the damage to continue?
and, what can any court do if Abbott flips the bird and continues?
Find him in contempt then issue a warrant then send the US Marshals to apprehend him.
Exactly.
It seems that you relish the thought, Milhouse. You’re a law-and-order leftist guy throwing out occasional legalistic stuff with a little bit of strategic thrown in.
I’m the very opposite of a leftist. But no legal system is possible if court orders can be ignored.
Our local paper, which is generally solidly to the left (The New London Day, theday.com) has this headline “Divided Supreme Court clears way for Texas to arrest migrants who illegally enter” which would seem to say the exact opposite from what those knowledgable readers here believe the ruling says. And I’ll go with the commenters here over the Day.
I haven’t read the whole article because I refuse to subscribe.
Well, the headline was literally true, as far as it went. That was what the SCOTUS decision not to stay the 5th circuit’s stay did mean. It just didn’t carry the significance everyone (on both sides) attributed to it. SCOTUS expressed no opinion on Texas arresting anyone; it merely said it wasn’t going to start interfering with administrative stays by circuit courts, though it might start if the 5th circuit didn’t get off its behind and do something.
No, SCOTUS did hint at an opinion. It said in its opinion that administrative stays are not value-free. It didn’t have to say it so clearly, but it did.
That does not hint at an opinion on the merits of this case. It was merely an observation on the nature of administrative stays.
Perhaps Abbot should take a page from the Biden Crime Book and totally ignore the courts.
Sigh, this again? Biden is not ignoring the courts. He is in full compliance with every court order and every decision. Claiming that he isn’t is a lie.