The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has notified a court that it wants a lawsuit against a Texas immigration law dismissed.
“Plaintiff the United States of America hereby voluntarily dismisses the above-captioned action,” lawyers for the DOJ said in a March 18 filing.
The DOJ did not respond to a request for comment.
Under President Joe Biden, the DOJ in 2024 sued Texas over a state law that enabled state police officers to arrest and deport illegal immigrants.
“Texas cannot disregard the United States Constitution and settled Supreme Court precedent,” Brian M. Boynton, the principal deputy assistant attorney general at the time, said in a Jan. 4 statement on the suit. “We have brought this action to ensure that Texas adheres to the framework adopted by Congress and the Constitution for regulation of immigration.”
Senate Bill 4, the law, created state crimes for illegally entering the United States, authorized state judges to order the deportation of some illegal immigrants, and required state officials to carry out the orders.
The law was blocked as courts weighed the case brought by the DOJ.
U.S. District Judge David Ezra, who entered an injunction against the statute, said in his February 2024 order that states under the U.S. Constitution “may not exercise immigration enforcement power except as authorized by the federal government.”
More recently, on Jan. 31, Ezra said that in light of developments, Texas law enforcement is permitted “to cooperate with and act under the direction of Federal authorities in the apprehension, arrest, and detention of undocumented persons found within the borders of the State of Texas without legal authorization from the United States Government.”
He also said that Texas judges and officers still cannot deport illegal immigrants and that other portions of the injunction remain in effect.
The developments included two executive orders from President Donald Trump, one of which stated that it was his administration’s policy to deter and prevent illegal immigrants from entering the United States and promptly remove all immigrants who illegally enter or are in the country in violation of federal law.
The other said that the U.S. secretary of homeland security will work with state and local officials to apprehend and deport illegal immigrants.
The DOJ previously dropped Biden-era lawsuits that challenged state immigration laws in Oklahoma and Iowa. As in the Texas case, officials under Biden had said that the laws violated the U.S. Constitution because they created state-level immigration systems that ran afoul of the federal system.
