AUSTIN — U.S. District Judge David Alan Ezra said during a hearing Wednesday in Austin that he believed parts of a Texas law authorizing state police to arrest people suspected of crossing the border illegally were unconstitutional. He said he might not issue any rulings before Friday, when Senate Bill 4 is set to take effect.

The Texas Legislature passed Senate Bill 4 to create a state crime for crossing the Texas-Mexico border without authorization and to establish a pathway for a state judge to find someone guilty of unauthorized entry and order their removal. Two people filed a lawsuit this month challenging the component involving the state's judicial system on the grounds that enforcement of immigration law rests solely with the federal government. The suit also challenged the section creating a state crime for re-entering Texas illegally on the grounds that it offers no defense for people with pending immigration status or federal permission to enter the United States.

Ezra, who was appointed by President Ronald Reagan, described the challenged parts of SB 4 as the "shame" of the law and "superfluous." He said the request for a temporary block raised complicated questions. "It just doesn't make any sense to me unless one ignores the Constitution," he said. "The state of Texas is not its own country."

He asked Texas whether it still claimed an invasion was underway given changed circumstances at the border. Three years ago, when state lawmakers debated the bill, the number of border crossings hit record highs. Under the Trump administration and after a Biden administration executive order largely restricting asylum, the number of border crossings has been hovering around record lows.

David Bryant from the attorney general's office represented Department of Public Safety Director Freeman Martin, the lawsuit's only named defendant. Bryant acknowledged that border crossings had decreased and urged the judge to deny the request for a preliminary block and to grant a motion to dismiss the case on the grounds that the law had not yet taken effect and Martin had not decided how state police would enforce it. "At this point, there is no imminent enforcement of that law," Bryant said.

The lawsuit is the second filed against Senate Bill 4. Last month, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed the first lawsuit on the grounds that the plaintiffs, organizations working with migrants and immigrants, lacked standing to sue. The appeals court did not address the constitutionality of the law. The Department of Justice under the Biden administration had challenged the constitutionality of SB 4, but the federal government's opposition ended under the Trump administration. The Trump administration plans to file a brief in support of Texas in the latest lawsuit, Ezra said. He said he intended to issue an order addressing the request for a preliminary injunction, a temporary restraining order, and the motion to dismiss.