A federal judge on Friday temporarily blocked Oklahoma from enforcing its new immigration law that would make it a crime to enter the state without legal authorization to be in the United States.
The ruling, issued just days before the law took effect Monday, is the latest legal setback for Republican-controlled states that have tested the limits of their immigration role by passing their own legislation aimed at repress people who crossed the border illegally. The Justice Department maintains that only the federal government can regulate and enforce immigration.
In March, a federal appeals court suspended a Texas law that would have given state and local police officers the authority to arrest undocumented immigrants. The Supreme Court briefly let the law stand, but sent the case back to the appeals court, which decided to stay its application.
Then in May, a federal judge temporarily blocked part of a Florida law that made it a crime to transport unauthorized immigrants into the state. And in mid-June, a district court put on hold an Iowa law that would have made it a crime for an immigrant to enter the state after being deported or denied entry into the country.
In the Oklahoma case, U.S. District Judge Bernard M. Jones wrote in his ruling that the state “may have understandable frustrations with the problems caused by illegal immigration,” but the state “may not pursue policies that undermine federal law.” He issued a preliminary injunction, suspending enforcement of the law while a case over the law’s constitutionality continues.
Under the new law, intentionally entering and remaining in Oklahoma without legal immigration status would be a state crime called “inadmissible occupancy.” A first offense would be a misdemeanor, punishable by up to one year in jail and a $500 fine; a subsequent offense would be a felony, punishable by up to two years in jail and a $1,000 fine.
After signing the bill into law in late April, Gov. Kevin Stitt, a Republican, said the measure was necessary because the Biden administration had not taken adequate steps to deter migrants from crossing the southern border illegally.
“Our hand has been forced by the unprecedented border security crisis,” Stitt said in a statement at the time. “We cannot sit idly by as threats to our security grow because the Biden administration has failed to offer even minimal protection.”
The number of people crossing the border into the United States has reached record levels under the Biden administration, although it has declined in recent months. Border agents recorded about 170,000 encounters with migrants in May, down from a high of more than 300,000 in December. Illegal border crossings have plummeted further since June 4, when the Biden administration unveiled new restrictions on asylum.
Oklahoma’s law was quickly questioned. The Justice Department, which sued the state in May, said the statute violated the U.S. Constitution, which gives the federal government broad power over immigration.
The American Civil Liberties Union and other legal groups also filed a lawsuit on behalf of several people and an Oklahoma-based advocacy organization, United Fathers of Tulsa. They argued that the legislation could “uproot and expel” thousands of immigrants in Oklahoma and bar others from entering the state, including asylum seekers and those seeking other legal immigration statuses.
“This is a harmful law that threatened to tear apart Oklahoma families and communities, and the court was right to block it,” Noor Zafar, an attorney with the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project, said in a statement.
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