Fifth Circuit Clears Texas to Enforce SB4: State Can Now Arrest Illegal Aliens After Years of Legal Battles
Texas has been fighting for years to enforce its own border security law. On Friday, a federal appeals court finally got out of the way.
The full Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 10-7 on April 24 that left-wing advocacy groups challenging Texas Senate Bill 4 lacked the legal standing to sue — vacating the preliminary injunction that had blocked enforcement of the law and clearing the path for Texas to arrest illegal aliens under state authority.
It’s a major win for Governor Greg Abbott, for the rule of law, and for every Texan who has watched the federal government abandon the southern border while demanding that states do nothing about it.
What SB4 Does
Texas SB4, signed into law in December 2023, does something straightforward: it treats illegal border crossing as a crime under Texas law. It authorizes Texas peace officers — state and local — to arrest individuals they have probable cause to believe crossed the Rio Grande illegally between official ports of entry. Those arrested face a Class B misdemeanor charge, carrying up to six months in jail.
State court judges can also order individuals who comply to return to Mexico in lieu of prosecution — effectively giving Texas its own removal mechanism independent of a federal government that had, under the Biden administration, made a deliberate policy of non-enforcement.
Critics called this “a state deportation scheme.” Texas called it filling a vacuum the federal government created.
Years of Legal Warfare
SB4 has been legally embattled almost from the moment Abbott signed it. The Biden Justice Department filed suit. A federal district court issued an injunction. The Fifth Circuit stayed it, the Supreme Court temporarily blocked it in March 2024, and lower courts went back and forth. All the while, the border crisis continued.
The Trump administration, after taking office in January 2025, dropped the Justice Department’s participation in the lawsuit — recognizing what most constitutional scholars already understood: that the federal government’s exclusive preemption argument was always thinner than the Biden DOJ pretended.
The case moved to an en banc hearing before the full Fifth Circuit. On Friday, the 10-7 majority didn’t even have to reach the merits. The three main plaintiffs — Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center, American Gateways, and El Paso County — were found to have no standing to bring the challenge in the first place.
“These Plaintiffs voluntarily incurred costs to advocate for clients,” the court wrote. “Under recent Supreme Court precedent, that falls far short of conferring standing. We vacate the preliminary injunction to the contrary.”
The Left’s Response: Predictably Dishonest
Nicolas Palazzo, director of legal services at Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center, complained that the Fifth Circuit “took the easy way out” by declining to rule on the merits. He warned of “a reign of fear and targeted profiling against migrants and their families.”
Translation: a court ruled correctly under established Supreme Court precedent, and open-borders advocates don’t like it.
What Palazzo omitted is that his organization voluntarily spent money on advocacy work — and then tried to parlay that spending into federal court standing. The Supreme Court has been increasingly clear that this maneuver doesn’t work. The Fifth Circuit applied that precedent. That isn’t “taking the easy way out.” That’s following the law.
Why This Matters
The ruling matters for several reasons beyond Texas.
First, it confirms that advocacy organizations cannot manufacture standing by spending money on clients and then billing themselves as injured parties. This closes a door that left-wing legal groups have repeatedly tried to open to block state-level enforcement laws.
Second, it signals that the yearslong legal siege against state immigration enforcement authority — funded in part by the same class of nonprofits that manufactured this lawsuit — can be defeated on procedural grounds before it ever reaches the merits. States that pass similar laws now have a clearer playbook.
Third, it sends a message that is long overdue: states are not constitutionally required to simply absorb unlimited illegal immigration and do nothing about it while waiting for Washington to act.
The Biden administration spent four years arguing that the federal government’s exclusive authority over immigration meant states had to stand aside while the border was effectively erased. That argument, built into the legal challenge against SB4, now has one fewer vehicle to ride in court.
What Comes Next
The challengers still have options. They can seek Supreme Court review or refile with plaintiffs who can establish standing under current doctrine. Given the current Supreme Court’s direction on standing, that will be a hard road.
For now, Texas law enforcement has the authority it asked for in 2023. The law that common sense and the people of Texas demanded — and that the federal government tried to kill — is alive.
The border still needs fixing. But at least one state has the legal standing to do something about it.
Sources: Texas Tribune (April 24, 2026); Townhall (April 24, 2026); GV Wire (April 24, 2026); YourNews (April 25, 2026).