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A sweeping 2023 Texas immigration law that lets state authorities arrest and deport people suspected of having illegally crossed the U.S.-Mexico border can go into effect after a federal appeals court on Friday lifted a lower court’s stoppage of certain provisions.

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued an unpublished order after Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office appealed the lower court’s May 14 injunction, which had blocked most of the law a day before it was set to take effect.

Friday’s ruling, which clears the law to take effect in its entirety, is the latest in a dizzying series of seesaw rulings over the fate of the measure known as Senate Bill 4. It comes as part of a lawsuit filed by civil rights groups contending parts of the landmark immigration law are unconstitutional.

The organizations brought the current lawsuit earlier this month to stop four key sections of Senate Bill 4: the creation of a crime for re-entering the country without authorization, even if a person has since gained legal status; the establishment of magistrates’ authority to order a person’s deportation; the creation of a crime for not complying with a magistrate’s order; and the requirement that magistrates continue a prosecution even if a person has an asylum claim or other pending immigration cases.

In a joint statement, the groups called the court’s decision “disappointing and out of step with the Constitution and the unbroken practice of other courts.”

Believing Borders Make Us Safer Is Like Believing the Sun Revolves Around Earth

“S.B. 4 will devastate our communities and families by turning our state’s legal system into an unconstitutional weapon to surveil, harass, and harm Texans based on their perceived immigration status,” the statement read, coming from the ACLU, the ACLU’s Texas........

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