(CNN Spanish) –– The U.S. Supreme Court has temporarily suspended enforcement of Texas' controversial immigration law that allows state officials to arrest and detain people suspected of entering the country illegally.
Justice Samuel Alito issued an executive stay that will prevent it from taking effect until March 13. This temporary stay will give the court more time to review the case report, although it does not necessarily indicate which way the court is leaning on the underlying application.
US Supreme Court Credit: Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images
Hours earlier, the Biden administration and several immigrant advocacy groups filed an emergency petition with the Supreme Court in which they asked the justices to block the law's application.
The controversial law would have come into effect on the morning of March 10 had it not been for the Supreme Court's intervention. The move, the Justice Department warned in its request, would “profoundly alter the status quo between the United States and the states over nearly 150 years of immigration.”
The bill, known as SB4, was signed into law by Texas Governor Greg Abbott last December. Among immigration advocates, it raised immediate concerns about arrests and deportation efforts by state officials in Texas, which is 40% Latino, and the potential for increased racial profiling.
Immigrants wait at a barbed wire fence after crossing the Rio Grande River in El Paso, Texas, from Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, on February 1. (Credit: John Moore/Getty Images)
Last week, a federal judge in Austin, Texas blocked the law from going into effect in the state.
“If allowed to stand, SB4 would open the door for each state to pass its own immigration laws,” wrote Justice David Allen Ezra.
Over the weekend, a federal appeals court issued a temporary stay on the lower court's ruling and said the law would go into effect later this week if the Supreme Court does not act on it.
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