The people of Texas may now do what they have a natural and constitutional right to do anyway.
On Tuesday, the Supreme Court lifted its own temporary freeze and rejected a Biden administration request to block enforcement of Texas Senate Bill 4, a new law signed in December by Republican Gov. Greg Abbott that allows state law enforcement officials to arrest illegal immigrants, per NBC News.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced the good news on the social media platform X.
“HUGE WIN: Texas has defeated the Biden Administration’s and ACLU’s emergency motions at the Supreme Court,” Paxton wrote.
“Our immigration law, SB 4, is now in effect. As always, it’s my honor to defend Texas and its sovereignty, and to lead us to victory in court,” he added.
🚨🚨 HUGE WIN: Texas has defeated the Biden Administration’s and ACLU’s emergency motions at the Supreme Court. Our immigration law, SB 4, is now in effect. As always, it’s my honor to defend Texas and its sovereignty, and to lead us to victory in court.
— Attorney General Ken Paxton (@KenPaxtonTX) March 19, 2024
Legal arguments over the bill’s ultimate fate will continue in lower courts. In the meantime, however, Texas authorities will enforce SB 4.
A majority opinion did not accompany the Supreme Court’s 6-3 ruling, but the three liberal justices nonetheless managed to produce two combined written dissents.
Did the Supreme Court get this one right?
In one of them, Justice Ketanji Brown-Jackson joined Justice Sonia Sotomayor in complaining that SB 4 would lead to “chaos.”
“Today, the Court invites further chaos and crisis in immigration enforcement,” the dissenting opinion began.
Meanwhile, Justice Elena Kagan reflected the Supreme Court’s centuries-long drift toward national consolidation.
“I would not allow Texas Senate Bill 4 to go into effect,” she wrote.
In a dissent commendable only for its brevity, Kagan insisted that “the subject of immigration generally, and the entry and removal of noncitizens particularly, are matters long thought the special province of the Federal Government.”
“Long thought,” yes, but indefensible under any fair reading of the U.S. Constitution’s text, let alone the Framers’ original intent.
Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution empowers Congress to “establish a uniform Rule of Naturalization.”
And Article IV, Section 4 requires the federal government to “guarantee” republican forms of government in the states and “protect each of them against Invasion.”
The Constitution says nothing else on the subject of immigration — and the federal government derives its power from no other source.
Where the Constitution remains silent, therefore, all powers remain reserved by the states and the people.
The 10th Amendment, part of the Bill of Rights, makes this clear. But the principle of reserved powers would hold true even if the Bill of Rights did not exist.
After all, the sovereign people wrote the Constitution, and the Constitution created the federal government. In a free republic, that is the pecking order.
Of course, our Pantheon-level Founding Fathers wanted legal immigration.
“Shall oppressed humanity find no asylum on this globe?” President Thomas Jefferson asked rhetorically in his 1801 First Annual Message.
But the man who wrote the Declaration of Independence also understood federalism far better than Kagan does.
“I see as you do, and with the deepest affliction, the rapid strides with which the federal branch of our government is advancing towards the usurpation of all the rights reserved to the states,” Jefferson wrote to one correspondent in 1825, “and the consolidation in itself of all powers foreign and domestic; and that too by constructions which, if legitimate, leave no limits to their power.”
In short, Americans since Jefferson have celebrated legal immigration.
However, the Constitution requires the federal government to protect states from invasion. And people who enter the U.S. in violation of the law qualify as literal invaders.
The Constitution further authorizes Congress to make rules regarding citizenship.
Aside from these specific grants of power, the federal government has no immigration-related authority.
Where the Constitution remains silent, the states reserve all power for themselves.
And where the federal government fails in its obligation to protect the states, the states and their people possess a natural right to defend themselves.
Thus, Texas must act and continue acting regardless of what federal courts ultimately decide.
