'Grave irreparable harm': Judge blocks Texas’ draconian immigration bill from taking effect

Texas Senate Bill 4, a controversial immigration measure, was scheduled to go into effect on Tuesday, March 5. But the bill is being held up by a Ronald Reagan appointee.

U.S. District Judge David Alan Ezra, according to ABC News, has "granted a preliminary injunction" preventing SB 4 from taking effect. But SB 4 supporters are expected to appeal Ezra's ruling.

Ezra wrote, "In the final analysis, it is clear that the Plaintiffs, particularly the United States, will suffer grave irreparable harm were SB 4 to take effect, especially where Texas has other aspects of Operation Lone Star in full force. The balance of equities unequivocally weighs in favor of denying the stay pending appeal."

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ABC News' Armando Garcia notes that the lawsuit against SB 4 was "filed in December 2023 by the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas and the Texas Civil Rights Project on behalf of El Paso County, Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center and American Gateways" — and was "consolidated with one filed by the Department of Justice."

Passed by the GOP-controlled Texas state legislature and signed into law by Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, SB 4 has inspired heated debates about immigration policy.

The Texas Observer's Gus Bova was highly critical of the bill in an article published on December 14.

"SB 4, passed in November during a dysfunctional fourth special legislative session, grants unprecedented powers to local and state police, judges and magistrates," Bova explained. "For starters, the bill makes it a state misdemeanor crime for a non-U.S. citizen to improperly enter Texas from another country — say, by rafting across the Rio Grande from Mexico. To avoid prosecution, alleged crossers may agree to a judicial order to return to the country they came from; if prosecuted, they face up to six months in jail, after which they’ll be subject to an identical order anyway."

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Bova added, "Refusal to comply with these state deportation orders constitutes a separate felony offense. The bill also makes it a crime to reenter or be 'at any time found' in Texas after having previously been removed from the country under SB 4 or by the feds. The law's language utterly ignores the fact that deportees can sometimes return legally to America."

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