Texas’s SB4 and the ‘Right to Arrest’: Testing the Limits of State Immigration Enforcement
In December 2023, the Legislature of Texas enacted Senate Bill 4 (SB4), a statute authorizing state and local law enforcement to arrest individuals suspected of illegally entering Texas — a domain traditionally reserved to the federal government. The law simultaneously empowers judges to issue de facto deportation orders, thereby testing the constitutional boundary between state autonomy and federal supremacy in immigration enforcement. This essay examines SB 4’s provisions, legal challenges, implications for federalism and civil Read more