Latest news with #TexasLaw
Yahoo
05-07-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Texas may not enforce migrant arrest law, US appeals court rules
By Nate Raymond (Reuters) -Texas authorities may not enforce a Republican-backed state law that would let them arrest and prosecute people suspected of illegally crossing the U.S.-Mexico border, a divided federal appeals court ruled late on Thursday. A 2-1 panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld an injunction that blocked enforcement of the disputed law, which former Democratic President Joe Biden's administration had gone to court to challenge. Republican President Donald Trump's administration dropped the federal government's case, but the Texas law known as SB4 had continued to be challenged by, among others, the immigrant rights group Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center, which argued federal law preempted the state's. The law, which Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed in December 2023, would make it a state crime to illegally enter or re-enter Texas from a foreign country and would empower state judges to order that violators leave the United States, with prison sentences up to 20 years for those who refuse to comply. U.S. Circuit Judge Priscilla Richman, writing for the New Orleans-based court's majority, said that for nearly 150 years, the U.S. Supreme Court has recognized that the power to control immigration was exclusively a federal power. Relying on a 2012 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that struck down parts of an Arizona immigration law, she said the Texas law, if allowed to be enforced by the Texas Department of Public Safety, would interfere with the federal government's ability to enforce complex U.S. immigration laws. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican, vowed to appeal the decision, saying "I will always fight to stop illegal immigration." The ruling upheld a lower-court judge's February 2024 preliminary injunction. The U.S. Supreme Court a month later briefly allowed the law to take effect, but the 5th Circuit within hours halted it pending further review. The opinion by Richman, an appointee of Republican President George W. Bush, was joined by U.S. Circuit Judge Irma Carrillo Ramirez, a Biden appointee. U.S. Circuit Judge Andrew Oldham, a Trump appointee, dissented. He said the majority treated as irrelevant that Trump has been encouraging states to aid his administration's efforts to ramp up immigration enforcement. "It is a sad day for the millions of Americans who are concerned about illegal immigration and who voiced those concerns at ballot boxes across Texas and the Nation," Oldham wrote. Cody Wofsy, a lawyer for the plaintiffs at the American Civil Liberties Union, in a statement welcomed the ruling, saying state immigration laws like the one Texas adopted have been repeatedly rejected by courts and "are deeply harmful to our communities.'
Yahoo
04-07-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Divided US appeals court blocks enforcement of Texas state immigration law
By Nate Raymond (Reuters) -Texas authorities may not enforce a Republican-backed state law that would let them arrest and prosecute people suspected of illegally crossing the U.S.-Mexico border, a divided federal appeals court ruled late Thursday. A 2-1 panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld an injunction that blocked enforcement of the disputed law, which former Democratic President Joe Biden's administration had gone to court to challenge. Republican President Donald Trump's administration dropped the federal government's case, but Texas's law known as SB4 had continued to be challenged by, among others, the immigrant rights group Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center, which argued federal law preempted the state's. The law, which Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed in December 2023, would make it a state crime to illegally enter or re-enter Texas from a foreign country and would empower state judges to order that violators leave the United States, with prison sentences up to 20 years for those who refuse to comply. U.S. Circuit Judge Priscilla Richman, writing for the New Orleans-based court's majority, said that for nearly 150 years, the U.S. Supreme Court has recognized that the power to control immigration was exclusively a federal power. Relying on a 2012 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that struck down parts of an Arizona immigration law, she said the Texas law, if allowed to be enforced by the Texas Department of Public Safety, would interfere with the federal government's ability to enforce complex U.S. immigration laws. The state did not respond to requests for comment. The ruling upheld a lower-court judge's February 2024 preliminary injunction. The U.S. Supreme Court a month later briefly allowed the law to take effect, but the 5th Circuit within hours halted it pending further review. The opinion by Richman, an appointee of Republican President George W. Bush, was joined by U.S. Circuit Judge Irma Carrillo Ramirez, a Biden appointee. U.S. Circuit Judge Andrew Oldham, a Trump appointee, dissented. He said the majority treated as irrelevant that Trump has been encouraging states to aid his administration's efforts to ramp up immigration enforcement. "It is a sad day for the millions of Americans who are concerned about illegal immigration and who voiced those concerns at ballot boxes across Texas and the Nation," Oldham wrote. Cody Wofsy, a lawyer for the plaintiffs at the American Civil Liberties Union, in a statement welcomed the ruling, saying state immigration laws like the one Texas adopted have been repeatedly rejected by courts and "are deeply harmful to our communities.'
Reuters
04-07-2025
- Politics
- Reuters
Divided US appeals court blocks enforcement of Texas state immigration law
July 4 (Reuters) - Texas authorities may not enforce a Republican-backed state law that would let them arrest and prosecute people suspected of illegally crossing the U.S.-Mexico border, a divided federal appeals court ruled late Thursday. A 2-1 panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld, opens new tab an injunction that blocked enforcement of the disputed law, which former Democratic President Joe Biden's administration had gone to court to challenge. Republican President Donald Trump's administration dropped the federal government's case, but Texas's law known as SB4 had continued to be challenged by, among others, the immigrant rights group Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center, which argued federal law preempted the state's. The law, which Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed in December 2023, would make it a state crime to illegally enter or re-enter Texas from a foreign country and would empower state judges to order that violators leave the United States, with prison sentences up to 20 years for those who refuse to comply. U.S. Circuit Judge Priscilla Richman, writing for the New Orleans-based court's majority, said that for nearly 150 years, the U.S. Supreme Court has recognized that the power to control immigration was exclusively a federal power. Relying on a 2012 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that struck down parts of an Arizona immigration law, she said the Texas law, if allowed to be enforced by the Texas Department of Public Safety, would interfere with the federal government's ability to enforce complex U.S. immigration laws. The state did not respond to requests for comment. The ruling upheld a lower-court judge's February 2024 preliminary injunction. The U.S. Supreme Court a month later briefly allowed the law to take effect, but the 5th Circuit within hours halted it pending further review. The opinion by Richman, an appointee of Republican President George W. Bush, was joined by U.S. Circuit Judge Irma Carrillo Ramirez, a Biden appointee. U.S. Circuit Judge Andrew Oldham, a Trump appointee, dissented. He said the majority treated as irrelevant that Trump has been encouraging states to aid his administration's efforts to ramp up immigration enforcement. "It is a sad day for the millions of Americans who are concerned about illegal immigration and who voiced those concerns at ballot boxes across Texas and the Nation," Oldham wrote. Cody Wofsy, a lawyer for the plaintiffs at the American Civil Liberties Union, in a statement welcomed the ruling, saying state immigration laws like the one Texas adopted have been repeatedly rejected by courts and "are deeply harmful to our communities.'
Yahoo
02-07-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Right to repair bill in Texas has been signed into law after winning by a landslide victory, with not a single vote against it
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Over the course of the weekend just gone, a new bill was signed by the Governor of Texas. Hardly newsworthy, of course, but the legislation passed into law was that of the right to repair electronics—something that only six other states have done. And perhaps even more importantly, the decision was entirely unanimous, with not a single vote against the bill being cast. Naturally, the good news was reported by repair gurus iFixit, and the bill essentially means that individual Texans and repair shops will have access to the manuals, parts, software, and tools required to repair any digital electronic goods that are sold in the state, worth more than $50, from September 2026. There are exemptions, such as anything involving medicine or motorized vehicles, and game consoles are also excluded. Some circuit boards won't be included, nor will anything that involves a 'trade secret', but a gaming laptop or handheld PC should certainly be covered by the law. Texas joins the likes of Oregon and California in a pretty small group of states that have enacted a right to repair law: just seven in total. However, what makes this particular decision really stand out is just how well the voting went on the bill. The Texas House passed the bill 126-0 two months ago, with the Senate voting 31-0 in early June. As with all such proceedings, some members were absent from the voting, but in both cases, even if everyone was present and cast a vote, the bill would still have easily passed. It's the same level of support that was seen in the European Parliament last year, which rubberstamped similar rules with an enormous 584-3 majority. The general consensus appears to be that consumers and legislators both want the right to repair. That might seem like a ridiculously obvious thing to say, but the fact that so few US States have made any progress on the matter shows that passing repair laws isn't as straightforward as one might think. Fingers might be pointed at manufacturers of electronic products as being the primary resistance to change and for two reasons: (1) it's cheaper to design and produce a device that's not designed to be repairable (e.g. glue is used to bond components rather than screws) and (2) having people replace a broken device, that could easily be fixed, with a brand-new model is good for revenue. However, right to repair bills typically don't place requirements on the cost of repair tools, replacement parts, and so on. Manufacturers can offset the expense of designing something to be easily fixed by pricing replacement parts and tools accordingly. The car industry has been doing this for decades, though your average sedan is vastly more expensive than a humble gaming PC—you'd certainly never go out and buy a new Ford just because a fan belt has snapped. But even if every state adopts a right to repair law, it will take many years to break the cycle of throwing out electronic devices, rather than having them repaired, simply because that's been the norm for so long. With the global amount of e-waste showing no signs of declining, widespread right to repair laws can't come soon enough.
CBS News
28-06-2025
- Politics
- CBS News
U.S. Supreme Court ruling on Texas porn age verification law restarts fight with similar Florida legislation
In a ruling that has implications for a battle over a similar Florida law, the U.S. Supreme Court on Friday upheld the constitutionality of a Texas law requiring age verification for access to websites with pornographic content. The court, in a 6-3 decision, said the Texas law does not violate First Amendment rights and that at least 21 other states — including Florida — "have imposed materially similar age-verification requirements to access sexual material that is harmful to minors online." As the Supreme Court weighed the Texas case in January, Tallahassee-based U.S. District Judge Mark Walker issued a stay of a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the Florida law. Walker on Friday quickly lifted the stay and gave directions to lawyers, including about filing "supplemental arguments now that the Supreme Court has provided additional guidance as to the applicable level of scrutiny that applies to plaintiffs' claims." What the Supreme Court decision says Friday's majority opinion, written by Justice Clarence Thomas, said age-verification laws "fall within states' authority to shield children from sexually explicit content." "The First Amendment leaves undisturbed states' traditional power to prevent minors from accessing speech that is obscene from their perspective," said the opinion, joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett. "That power necessarily includes the power to require proof of age before an individual can access such speech. It follows that no person — adult or child — has a First Amendment right to access speech that is obscene to minors without first submitting proof of age." But Justice Elena Kagan, in a dissent joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson, said the age-verification requirement would burden the First Amendment rights of adults who want to view websites with pornographic content. "Texas can of course take measures to prevent minors from viewing obscene-for-children speech," Kagan wrote. "But if a scheme other than H. B. 1181 (the Texas law) can just as well accomplish that objective and better protect adults' First Amendment freedoms, then Texas should have to adopt it (or at least demonstrate some good reason not to). A state may not care much about safeguarding adults' access to sexually explicit speech; a state may even prefer to curtail those materials for everyone. Many reasonable people, after all, view the speech at issue here as ugly and harmful for any audience. But the First Amendment protects those sexually explicit materials, for every adult. So a state cannot target that expression, as Texas has here, any more than is necessary to prevent it from reaching children." Where does Florida's law stand now after the ruling? Florida lawmakers passed the age-verification requirements in 2024 as part of a broader bill (HB 3) that also seeks to prevent children under age 16 from opening social-media accounts on some platforms. The social-media part of the bill drew a separate constitutional challenge, with Walker this month issuing a preliminary injunction to block it on First Amendment grounds. The Free Speech Coalition, an adult-entertainment industry group, and other plaintiffs filed the lawsuit challenging the pornography-related part of the law. The Free Speech Coalition also has been a plaintiff in the Texas case. The Florida lawsuit centers on part of the law that applies to any business that "knowingly and intentionally publishes or distributes material harmful to minors on a website or application, if the website or application contains a substantial portion of material harmful to minors." It defines "substantial portion" as more than 33.3 percent of total material on a website or app. In such situations, the law requires businesses to use methods to "verify that the age of a person attempting to access the material is 18 years of age or older and prevent access to the material by a person younger than 18 years of age." The lawsuit raises objections about how the law would apply to minors and adults, including saying it "demands that, as a condition of access to constitutionally protected content, an adult must provide a digital proof of identity to adult content websites that are doubtlessly capable of tracking specific searches and views of some of the most sensitive, personal, and private contents a human being might search for." The lawsuit also alleges that the law does not properly differentiate between older minors and younger children. In addition to alleging violations of First Amendment rights, the lawsuit contends that the law violates due-process rights, the U.S. Constitution's Commerce Clause and what is known as the Supremacy Clause — issues that were not addressed in Friday's opinion about the Texas law.
