Several so-called civil rights organizations filed a lawsuit on Monday in an attempt to stop a Texas law that allows police to arrest illegal aliens.
Senate Bill 4, as it’s known, specifically “created a state-level crime for entering the country without authorization and created pathways for state authorities to remove such people from the country if convicted,” according to The Texas Tribune.
It basically makes it so local cops can act with the same level of authority as immigration officials.
The law will finally go into effect next week, thanks to a federal appeals court last month lifting a lower court ruling that had kept the law paused in limbo since 2024.
Breaking News: 5th Circuit Court lifts block on SB4 that lets Texas enforce immigration law.
The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals lifted an order that blocked enforcement of Texas Senate Bill 4.
SB 4 allows Texas to enforce certain types of immigration crimes such as illegal… pic.twitter.com/m4TBGMeKk3
— hernando arce (@hernandoarce) April 25, 2026
The Texas Civil Rights Project, the ACLU, and the ACLU’s Texas chapter all filed suit Monday, arguing that Senate Bill 4 is unconstitutional because immigration law is a federal matter.
According to the Tribune, the three entities are targeting four key provisions of Senate Bill 4:
- “The creation of a crime for re-entering the country without authorization, even if a person has since obtained legal status.”
- “Granting state magistrates authority to order a person’s deportation.”
- “The creation of a crime for failing to comply with a magistrate’s order.”
- “Requiring that magistrates continue a prosecution even if a person has a pending immigration case, such as an asylum claim.”
“Our fight against SB 4 isn’t over until justice wins,” Kate Gibson Kumar of the Texas Civil Rights Project said in a statement. “SB 4 is not only unconstitutional, but a vile law that uses our Texas resources to harm communities across our state.”
ACLU of Texas Legal Director Adriana Piñon referenced similar grievances in a press release.
“S.B. 4 would transform our police and judges into immigration agents — threatening neighbors who have families here, who have lived here for years, even those who have legal status,” she said in a statement.
“Immigration enforcement is exclusively the federal government’s arena, and no state has ever claimed the power Texas threatens to wield here. We are taking this back to court to defend our Texas communities,” she added.
Cody Wofsy, the deputy director of the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project, meanwhile, argued that the law is “cruel and illegal.”
“Every court to have reached the merits of laws like S.B. 4 has found them to be unconstitutional,” he said in a statement while ignoring a higher federal court’s ruling. “S.B. 4 is cruel and illegal, and we will keep fighting it until it is permanently struck down.”
The former Biden administration tried for its part to challenge the law in court two years ago:
BREAKING: The Biden administration DOJ just sued Texas over its new border security bill, SB4, which would allow TX authorities to arrest and jail people suspect of crossing illegally into TX, and would seek to give judges authority to deport. Law set to go into effect in March.
— Bill Melugin (@BillMelugin_) January 3, 2024
On Dec. 28 of that year, the Biden Department of Justice sent a letter to Texas Gov. Greg Abbott warning that Senate Bill 4 would allegedly violate the U.S. Constitution, according to NBC News.
The law “effectively creates a separate state immigration scheme by imposing criminal penalties for violations of federal provisions on unlawful entry and reentry into the United States … and by authorizing state judges to order the removal of noncitizens from the United States,” the letter read.
Abbott vowed to fight the suit, with his spokesperson saying in a statement that Texas was “prepared to take this fight all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court to protect Texans and Americans from President Biden’s open border policies.”
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton later defended the law in court. And as noted earlier, the defense of the law worked.
“My office has secured yet another major win for Texas by defending SB 4 before the Fifth Circuit,” Paxton said after a federal appeals court restored the law. “Texas’s right to arrest illegals, protect our citizens, and enforce immigration law is fundamental. This is a major victory for public safety and law and order.”
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V. Saxena is a staff writer with a decade of experience as a professional writer, and a lifetime of experience as an avid news junkie. He holds a degree in computer technology from Purdue University. Saxena also contributes to BizPac Review.
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