The US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit on Friday cleared the way for Texas to enforce Senate Bill 4 (SB 4), staying a district court injunction that had blocked the state immigration enforcement measure from taking effect. The decision allows Texas law enforcement officers to arrest people suspected of entering the country without authorization and empowers state magistrates to order their removal.
Judge Leslie Southwick was the lone dissenter and would have denied Texas’s motion. The brief order provided no detailed reasoning beyond pausing the lower court’s block on several core provisions of the law, including a reentry crime that reaches individuals who have since obtained lawful status such as a green card, the authority of state magistrates to issue removal orders, and the offense of failing to comply with those orders.
SB 4, signed into law by Governor Greg Abbott in December 2023, creates a state crime for entering Texas from a foreign nation at any location other than a lawful port of entry. First-time violations are classified as a misdemeanor, while subsequent offenses carry felony penalties of up to 20 years in prison for those who refuse to comply with removal orders.
Friday’s order is the latest development in a years-long battle over the law. A federal district court initially blocked SB 4 in February 2024, and the Fifth Circuit upheld that injunction the following month. On April 24, 2026, the full Fifth Circuit, sitting en banc, vacated the injunction by a 10-7 vote, holding that the plaintiffs, including El Paso County, Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center, and American Gateways, lacked standing to challenge the law. The en banc court did not address the underlying constitutionality of SB 4.
Following the en banc decision, the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Texas, and the Texas Civil Rights Project filed a new class action lawsuit on May 4, 2026. A federal district court issued a fresh injunction in that case, which the Fifth Circuit panel has now stayed.
Abbott celebrated Friday’s order in a post on X, writing that Texas would “keep fighting in the courts, working with President Trump, and doing everything necessary to secure our border and protect Texans.”
Critics argue the law unconstitutionally intrudes on the federal government’s exclusive authority over immigration. In Arizona v. United States, the US Supreme Court in 2012 struck down key provisions of a similar Arizona statute, holding that federal immigration law preempted state efforts to create parallel criminal penalties for unlawful entry. The Trump administration dismissed the federal government’s challenge to SB 4 in March 2025, leaving advocacy organizations and El Paso County as the remaining plaintiffs.
In his concurrence to the April 2026 en banc decision, Judge James Ho argued that SB 4 falls within the scope of Texas’s “war power” under Article I, Section 10 of the US Constitution. Dissenting judges, led by Chief Judge Priscilla Richman, countered that federal statutes governing alien entry and removal remain supreme even when a state invokes the State War Clause. The litigation could ultimately reach the US Supreme Court, which briefly allowed SB 4 to take effect in March 2024 before the Fifth Circuit halted it pending further review.
