The US Supreme Court has put the Texas immigration law on hold indefinitely

The U.S. Supreme Court has indefinitely suspended a controversial Texas immigration law that allows state officials to arrest and detain people suspected of entering the country illegally.

The executive stay will remain in place while the high court evaluates emergency appeals by the Biden administration and other parties, which are asking justices to block implementation of the law while their challenges develop.

Monday's order did not include an expiration date for the suspension.

The order comes as Justice Samuel Alito oversees matters arising from the appeals court, which is currently evaluating the case.

This is the third time the Supreme Court has blocked the controversial legislation known as SB4. For the first time on March 4, Alito announced a temporary suspension until March 13. Later, on March 12, the High Court extended the stay.

These executive orders give the court more time to review the facts of the case. However, they do not necessarily indicate which way the court is leaning with respect to substantive application.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed SB4 into law last December.

The arrests and deportation efforts by state officials in Texas, where Latinos make up 40% of the population, immediately raised concerns among immigration advocates about the potential for increased racial profiling.

In a petition to the Supreme Court, the Justice Department argued that the law would “profoundly” change “the status quo between the United States and the states on nearly 150 years of immigration.”

“People don't agree with immigration. They never existed. And Texas may be deeply concerned about recent immigration,” a pair of immigration groups and attorneys for El Paso County wrote in court documents.

“But the same thing happened in California in the 1870s, in Pennsylvania and Michigan in the 1930s, and in Arizona in 2012. Yet for 150 years this Court has made it clear that states cannot regulate the vital sphere of immigration, entry and exit,” they added.

For their part, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican, and other officials told the Supreme Court, “The Constitution recognizes that Texas has sovereign rights from violent transnational cartels that flood the state with fentanyl, weapons and all forms of brutality.”

The case is the most recent example of the Biden administration going to the Supreme Court in its ongoing dispute with Texas over immigration.

Earlier this year, the high court gave the government a temporary victory by overturning a lower court order barring federal agents from removing razor wire that Texas officials had erected along a stretch of the U.S.-Mexico border.

Oral arguments in the Fifth Circuit are scheduled for next month.

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