Texas and the Biden administration have been at odds over multiple border security issues. On Saturday, March 2, an appeals court ruled in favor of the state, reversing a lower court’s ruling that halted a Texas law that would allow local law enforcement to arrest migrants suspected of being in the U.S. illegally.
On Thursday, Feb. 29 a district judge ruled in the federal government’s favor, stopping the new Texas law from going into effect. This barred local police from intervening in immigration enforcement.
In light of the appeals court ruling, the new law could go into effect on Saturday, March 9, so the Biden administration will have time to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
If the higher court does not intervene, local police can start arresting migrants in Texas who are in the country illegally. Part of the law also requires state judges to order migrants to return to Mexico if they are convicted of being in the U.S. illegally.
This is just one example of Texas and the federal government in conflict over how to handle the border crisis. Some other disputes have occurred over installing buoys across the Rio Grande and the use of razor wire to enforce the border.
These tensions come as a backlog of migrants in the U.S. reaches a record high.
There will be more than 8 million asylum-seekers living in the United States “in legal limbo,” according to internal Immigration and Customs Enforcement numbers reviewed by Axios. That is a 167% increase of the past five years, up from 3 million in 2019.