“BREAKING HUGE NEWS,” Republican Texas Governor Greg Abbott announced on social media Monday, cheering a federal appeals court ruling on his state’s immigration law that had been blocked by a lower court.
“Federal appeals court allows Texas immigration law to take effect,” Gov. Abbott wrote:
“Law enforcement officers in Texas are now authorized to arrest & jail any illegal immigrants crossing the border.”
“Obviously this is the case unless the Supreme Court intervenes by March 9,” Gov. Abbott followed up. The ruling stays the enforcement of the Texas law until that date, in order to give the U.S. Supreme Court the opportunity to take up the case.
The law had been set to go into effect on March 5, but a lower court blocked it, as CNN Politics explains:
“Last week, a federal judge in Austin, Texas, blocked the state government from implementing Senate Bill 4, which would allow state law enforcement authorities to arrest and detain people they suspect of entering the country illegally.”