A federal appeals court panel cleared the way Friday for Texas to enforce the most contested provisions of Senate Bill 4, the state law that makes illegal border crossings a state crime and authorizes local police to arrest suspected violators. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit issued a brief order pausing a lower court's preliminary injunction, and offered no detailed reasoning for doing so.
The ruling reactivates sections of SB 4 that a federal district judge had blocked just two weeks earlier, handing Governor Greg Abbott and state law enforcement a significant procedural win in a legal fight that has bounced between courtrooms for more than two years.
At stake is a question that has divided federal judges, split circuits, and drawn the attention of the Supreme Court: whether a state can criminalize conduct, illegal entry and reentry, that the federal government has long treated as its exclusive domain. Friday's order does not settle that question. But it lets Texas act while the answer is litigated.
The Fifth Circuit panel's order paused a May 14 preliminary injunction issued by U.S. District Court Judge David Alan Ezra. Judge Ezra had blocked only the reentry provisions of SB 4, allowing the rest of the statute to take effect on May 15. His 78-page opinion found that two Honduran immigrants leading a class-action lawsuit faced likely arrest and possible removal once those reentry provisions took force.
With the appeals court's Friday order, those provisions snap back into effect. The Daily Caller reported that the reactivated sections include a provision treating reentry into the United States as a state offense, even for individuals who now hold green cards or other lawful federal immigration status.
Another provision grants Texas state magistrates the authority to issue removal orders, with a separate offense for refusing to comply. A fourth requires those magistrates to continue prosecution even when a defendant has a pending federal immigration case.
Read that again. Under SB 4, a state judge in Texas can order a person removed from the country and prosecute someone for defying that order, regardless of what federal immigration courts are doing with the same individual's case.
SB 4 has traveled a winding legal path. The ACLU of Texas, the national ACLU, and the Texas Civil Rights Project filed their class-action suit against the law on May 4, contending it strips the federal government of its exclusive authority over immigration enforcement. The groups described SB 4 as among the harshest immigration statutes any state legislature has enacted.
Ten days later, Judge Ezra partially agreed and blocked the reentry provisions. But the rest of SB 4 began enforcement the next day.
The broader legal battle over SB 4 stretches back further. National Review reported that in early 2024, Justice Samuel Alito temporarily stayed a Fifth Circuit ruling that would have allowed Texas to enforce the law, giving both sides time to file responses. The Supreme Court later allowed SB 4 to take effect while sending the case back to the Fifth Circuit for expedited review.
The Fifth Circuit has been a frequent venue for immigration enforcement wins under the current administration. In an earlier en banc proceeding, Newsmax reported that the full Fifth Circuit voted 10-7 to overturn a 2024 injunction blocking SB 4, with the Trump administration having dropped the federal government's prior challenge to the law that the Biden administration had pursued.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton framed the stakes bluntly in that earlier round, stating that "Texas's right to arrest illegals, protect our citizens, and enforce immigration law is fundamental." Dissenting judges saw it differently. U.S. Circuit Judge Priscilla Richman wrote that "Texas cannot enact its own immigration regime."
Governor Abbott wasted no time claiming the win. In a post on X shortly after the ruling, he wrote:
"BREAKING: Texas received a major border security victory. SB 4 makes it a state crime to illegally enter Texas. Shortly after I filed a legal brief defending that law, a federal appeals court ruled to allow it to be enforced while the case continues. We will keep fighting in the courts, working with President Trump, and doing everything necessary to secure our border and protect Texans."
Judge Leslie Southwick was the lone dissenter on the Fifth Circuit panel and would have rejected the state's motion to pause the injunction. The panel's order offered no detailed reasoning beyond lifting Judge Ezra's block.
That silence matters. A brief, unexplained order gives Texas what it wants right now, enforcement authority, without creating the kind of detailed legal opinion that would guide future cases or telegraph how the full court might ultimately rule on the constitutional question.
The core dispute over SB 4 is not new. For more than a century, immigration enforcement has been treated as a federal responsibility. The Constitution's Supremacy Clause and a long line of Supreme Court precedent have kept states from creating parallel deportation systems.
Opponents of SB 4 have leaned hard on that history. Justice Sonia Sotomayor, in an earlier stage of the litigation, wrote that Texas "passed a law that directly regulates the entry and removal of noncitizens and explicitly instructs its state courts to disregard any ongoing federal immigration proceedings." She argued the law "upends the federal state balance of power that has existed for over a century."
Judge Ezra echoed that reasoning in his own rulings, writing that "Texas may continue to" enforce its borders through other means, "but it cannot regulate the federal field of unlawful entry and removal." Breitbart noted that the Supreme Court's earlier procedural moves on SB 4 left the underlying constitutional question unresolved, with the case likely to return to the high court.
But the political ground has shifted. The Trump administration dropped the federal government's challenge to SB 4, removing the most powerful institutional opponent from the courtroom. That left the ACLU and allied civil rights groups to carry the fight without the backing of the Justice Department.
The result is a legal landscape where circuit courts are splitting on immigration enforcement authority, and the Supreme Court may eventually have no choice but to draw a definitive line.
With the injunction paused, Texas police can now begin arresting people suspected of crossing the border illegally under SB 4's reentry provisions. The law allows sentences of up to 20 years for repeat offenses. State magistrates can issue removal orders. And they can prosecute defendants even when federal immigration proceedings are already underway.
How quickly enforcement ramps up remains unclear. The Fifth Circuit's order does not set a timeline, and the underlying class-action lawsuit continues. Abbott's own post acknowledged the case is ongoing, pledging to "keep fighting in the courts."
The identities of the two Honduran immigrants leading the class-action suit have not been made public. Whether the ACLU seeks emergency relief from the Supreme Court, as it has in earlier rounds, is an open question. And the full composition of the Fifth Circuit panel that issued Friday's order was not disclosed beyond Judge Southwick's dissent.
Federal courts across the country continue to grapple with the boundaries of state immigration enforcement. A recent Ninth Circuit ruling blocking a California law targeting ICE agents illustrated the tension from the opposite direction, blue states trying to constrain federal enforcement, red states trying to expand their own.
Meanwhile, the broader question of how far states can go in defending law and order at the border remains unresolved at the highest level.
SB 4 exists because the federal government spent years failing to secure the southern border, and Texas decided to stop waiting. The ACLU calls it the harshest immigration statute any state has passed. Supporters call it common sense. The Fifth Circuit, for now, has sided with the state that chose to act.
When Washington refuses to do its job, someone else will. The courts can debate jurisdiction. Texans will enforce the law.
