(AMARILLO, Texas) — Several large wildfires continue to tear through northern Texas, including one that has grown into the largest blaze in state history.
The Smokehouse Creek Fire that ignited in Hutchinson County remained active Thursday, with just 3% containment, the Texas A&M Forest Service said. The flames, which cover an area larger than the size of Rhode Island, have spread across state lines, with more than a million acres burned in Texas and 25,000 acres burned in Oklahoma.
The East Amarillo Complex Fire, which burned also in Hutchinson County in 2006, had been the largest in the state’s history at just under 1 million acres, according to the Texas A&M Forest Service.
Texas A&M Forest Service confirmed to ABC News there was one wildfire-related fatality in the small town of Stinnett, Texas.
ABC News confirmed a second person had died. Cindy Owen, 44, who had been making deliveries, was caught up in the fire’s smoke. Authorities found her alive outside the truck, and she was transported to an Oklahoma City burn unit, where she died Thursday morning.
The Windy Deuce Fire that ignited in Moore County was also still active as of Thursday afternoon, having burned an estimated 142,000 acres and was 50% contained. The Grape Vine Fire that ignited in nearby Gray County had burned an estimated 30,000 acres and was 60% contained as of early Wednesday, according to the Texas A&M Forest Service.
The raging wildfires have consumed swathes of the Turkey Track Ranch, a 120-year-old, 80,000-acre private property located along the Canadian River in the Texas Panhandle. The sprawling, historic ranch has been up for sale and is listed at $180 million.
“The loss of livestock, crops, and wildlife, as well as ranch fencing and other infrastructure throughout our property as well as other ranches and homes across the region is, we believe, unparalleled in our history,” managers of the Turkey Track Ranch Family Group said in a statement Wednesday. “Our early assessment estimates that The Turkey Track Ranch has suffered and lost approximately 80% of our pastures, plains, and creek bottom vegetation. We continue to assess the total damage to other infrastructure and the loss of livestock.”
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott on Tuesday declared a disaster declaration for 60 counties due to “widespread wildfire activity throughout the state.”
The weather forecast for Thursday shows relative humidity will be high, with cooler temperatures and a chance of rain and snow for the Texas Panhandle, which would help with firefighting efforts. Wind gusts could get up to 30 miles per hour, but aren’t expected to be as extreme as they were earlier in the week.
However, unseasonably warm and windy weather is expected to return to wildfire-ravaged region this weekend, creating ideal conditions for critical fire danger. Temperatures in the Texas Panhandle are forecast to surpass 70 and even 80 degrees Fahrenheit from Friday through Sunday, while wind gusts could be 30 to 45 mph.
ABC News’ Max Golembo and Marilyn Heck contributed to this report.
Raul Rubiera/Miami Herald/Tribune News Service via Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) — A former U.S. ambassador charged with spying for Cuban intelligence over a more than four-decade span told a judge Thursday he plans to plead guilty in his case, according to court records.
Manuel Rocha, who rose through the ranks of the U.S. government and ultimately served as a U.S. ambassador to Bolivia from 2000 to 2002, will plead guilty to two of the 15 charges brought against him in an indictment returned in December.
Attorney General Merrick Garland has described the case as “one of the highest reaching and longest lasting infiltrations of US government by a foreign agent.”
Rocha is set to formally change his plea and face sentencing at a hearing scheduled for April 12 in Miami.
Federal prosecutors say as early as 1981 and continuing to present day, Rocha secretly supported Cuba and its intelligence services by serving as an agent for the communist government against the U.S.
As part of his alleged role, Rocha attained high-level diplomatic positions that provided him access to classified information and abilities to affect U.S. foreign policy.
“ROCHA always kept his status as a Cuban agent secret in order to protect himself and others and to allow himself the opportunity to engage in additional clandestine activity,” prosecutors said in a criminal complaint.
He had faced charges of conspiracy, acting as an illegal agent of a foreign government and unlawful use of a passport obtained by a false statement.
The indictment also brought several charges of wire fraud against Rocha, noting how he sought to “unlawfully enrich himself while furthering the intelligence interests” of Cuba by repeatedly lying to attain and maintain his employment at the State Department — including annual annuity retirement payments after leaving office.
(WASHINGTON) — Two of Donald Trump’s criminal cases face a key inflection point on Friday, as judges in Florida and Georgia weigh plans for the historic trials of the former president.
In Florida, U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon is set to consider moving the May 20 trial date in Trump’s federal classified documents case during a court conference that the former president plans to attend in person.
Trump’s lawyers have argued that the case should be entirely dismissed based on Trump’s claim of presidential immunity — an argument that the Supreme Court on Wednesday said they would consider in Trump’s federal election interference case.
Trump pleaded not guilty last June to 37 criminal counts related to his handling of classified materials, after prosecutors said he repeatedly refused to return hundreds of documents containing classified information ranging from U.S. nuclear secrets to the nation’s defense capabilities, and took steps to thwart the government’s efforts to get the documents back. The former president has denied all wrongdoing in the case.
Meanwhile, in Georgia, Fulton County Judge Scott McAfee will hear final arguments on the potential disqualification of District Attorney Fani Willis from the election interference case she brought against Trump and 18 others, on the grounds that she allegedly benefited financially from a romantic relationship she had with one of the prosecutors she hired for the case.
And with only 25 days until jury selection begins in Trump’s criminal hush money case in New York, Friday’s court proceedings could fundamentally realign the former president’s legal battles as he races toward the 2024 presidential election.
The former president has pleaded not guilty and denied wrongdoing in all cases.
Trump’s conference in Florida
Trump plans to attend what is likely to be a marathon court conference Friday in his classified documents case, where attorneys will address multiple motions to dismiss the case, as well as issues surrounding the classified materials in question and scheduling challenges.
Trump’s co-defendants, longtime aide Walt Nauta and Mar-a-Lago staffer Carlos De Oliveira, are also expected to attend the hearing, which will be held in Fort Pierce, Florida.
The trial for the case is currently scheduled to begin on May 20.
Friday’s court conference follows several sealed hearings that were held this month to address access to evidence. Special counsel Jack Smith’s team and Trump’s attorneys have clashed over how much discovery information should be redacted — or completely withheld from public view.
Wednesday’s decision by the Supreme Court granting Trump’s request to consider whether he should have immunity from prosecution in his federal election subversion case has cast further doubt on whether the former president will stand trial on those charges prior to the 2024 election. Whether Trump can convince Judge Cannon to similarly delay his classified documents trial will be a central issue in Friday’s hearing — and could ultimately determine whether either case brought by Smith is ever heard by a jury.
In court filings, Trump’s lawyers have argued that the same argument of presidential immunity should apply to Trump’s alleged retention of classified documents, since the decision to remove the documents from the White House occurred while Trump was still president.
“The alleged decision was an official act, and as such is subject to presidential immunity,” defense lawyers wrote last week in a motion to dismiss the case.
In an additional series of motions, Trump’s attorneys argued that the case should be dismissed because Smith’s appointment as special counsel was unlawful; that Smith charged Trump with statutes that shouldn’t apply to the former president; and that Trump should have been able to have custody of the documents in question, even after he was president, because of the Presidential Records Act.
Complications surrounding the handling of classified documents in the case could also result in a delay. In November, Judge Cannon said she would make a decision on whether to move the trial date once the parties determined how classified discovery is handled at trial; however, the parties in the case still face multiple unresolved issues surrounding how classified information should be handled at trial and in pre-trial litigation.
Trump has been attempting to delay the trial for several months, with his attorneys arguing in court filings last year that the extraordinary nature of the case means there should be no reason to expedite the trial. Earlier this month the special counsel’s team said that Trump and his co-defendants “will stop at nothing to stall the adjudication of the charges against them by a fair and impartial jury of citizens.”
Judge Cannon previously ruled that Smith’s team must file a cache of documents on the public docket, but in a motion last month, Smith urged her to reconsider her ruling, saying that doing so would, among other things, reveal the names of potential witnesses in the case, “exposing them to significant and immediate risks of threats, intimidation, and harassment.”
“These risks are far from speculative in this case,” Smith argued in his filing. “Witnesses, agents, and judicial officers in this very case have been harassed and intimidated, and the further outing of additional witnesses will pose a similarly intolerable risk of turning their lives upside down.”
Smith is asking Judge Cannon to suspend her ruling until the matter is resolved, suggesting that he might try to appeal the ruling to a higher court if Cannon doesn’t reverse course.
Willis’ hearing in Georgia
Five hundred miles away from Judge Cannon’s Florida courtroom, the Fulton County judge overseeing Trump’s Georgia election interference case will hear arguments on Friday about the potential disqualification of DA Fani Willis.
“At this point, I need to start hearing the arguments and the law and what we’ve heard so far,” Judge McAfee said on Tuesday following three days of witness testimony. “If I think I’m able to reach a ruling based on that, I will.”
Defense lawyers have argued that Willis benefited financially by hiring a prosecutor with whom she had a romantic relationship and suggested that they both perjured themselves when they testified two weeks ago about the timing of their romantic relationship.
Both Willis and the prosecutor Nathan Wade said their romantic relationship started in the spring of 2022 — months after Wade was hired by the Fulton County district attorney’s office in November 2021.
“You’re confused. You think I’m on trial. These people are on trial for trying to steal an election in 2020,” Willis testified, vehemently pushing back on the allegation that she benefited financially from the relationship.
“I’m not on trial, no matter how hard you try to put me on trial,” she said.
Defense lawyers initially argued that Wade’s former law partner and divorce lawyer, Terrence Bradley, would contradict Wade and Willis’ claim about when the relationship began, but Bradley testified this week that any past statements he made to that effect were “speculation on my part.”
“I do not know when the relationship started between Mr. Wade and Ms. Willis. I cannot recall that,” Bradley repeated during Tuesday’s two-hour hearing.
(SANTA FE, N.M) — David Halls, the first assistant director for “Rust,” gave emotional testimony Thursday about the death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins during the involuntary manslaughter trial of armorer Hannah Gutierrez.
Actor Alec Baldwin was practicing a cross-draw in a church on the set of the Western movie in Santa Fe, New Mexico, in 2021 when the gun fired a live round, striking Hutchins and director Joel Souza, who suffered a non-life-threatening injury.
Halls, the film’s safety coordinator, had conducted the safety check on the Colt .45 revolver before it was handed to Baldwin.
The actor was discussing where to point the gun with Hutchins before the shooting occurred, Halls told the court, tearing up.
“Then the gun went off,” Halls said. “It wasn’t computing.”
“My thought was that a blank round had been loaded,” he said.
Halls said he was one of the first people to reach Hutchins, who was on the ground, and asked her if she was all right.
“She said, ‘I can’t feel my legs,'” Halls said, crying.
Halls was charged with negligent use of a deadly weapon and sentenced in March 2023 to six months of unsupervised probation as part of a plea deal.
Asked by prosecutors on Thursday why he accepted that plea deal, he responded, “I was negligent in checking the gun properly.”
Gutierrez, 26, was charged with involuntary manslaughter last year in Hutchins’ death following a lengthy investigation. She was subsequently charged with tampering with evidence. Prosecutors allege she handed off a small bag of cocaine after her interview with law enforcement following the shooting.
She has pleaded not guilty to both charges.
Defense attorney Jason Bowles said during opening statements last week that the production and state have made Gutierrez a “scapegoat” in the tragic shooting.
The defense has argued there is no proof that cocaine was in the bag and that she was charged with the offense “in an effort to cause unfair prejudice” to the defendant during the trial.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(PHILADELPHIA) — A Philadelphia man who was convicted and sentenced to death in connection with the 1994 arson murder of a woman is now exonerated 30 years later, the District Attorney’s Office announced.
On Wednesday, Daniel Gwynn, 54, was exonerated and released from state prison in Pennsylvania after the DA’s office said they found flaws in the 1994 first-degree murder investigation.
“The exoneration of Daniel Gwynn today frees a man who is likely innocent,” Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner said in a press release. “Sadly, it also exemplifies an era of inexact and, at times corrupt, policing and prosecution that has broken trust with our communities to this day.”
On November 20, 1994, an unhoused woman named Marsha Smith was killed after a fire broke out in a vacant building on the 4500 block of Chestnut Street in West Philadelphia, according to the press release.
The DA’s office said Smith, Gwynn and three other individuals were squatting in the vacant building at the time of the fire.
A jury trial relied on faulty testimony from two witnesses and a confession from Gwynn, which he recounted and was found inconsistent with how the fire started, according to the release.
The DA’s office also said Gwynn was never read his Miranda Rights.
Information about an alternate suspect — who was identified by witnesses to police — was never turned over to Gwynn or presented during his prosecution, which violated his constitutional rights, according to the release.
The DA’s office says witnesses identified Gwynn to police as “Rick” from photo arrays used in a separate murder investigation that took place in the same building three days before the fire.
The photo arrays in the police files did not include Gwynn’s photo and were never turned over to his defense counsel, according to the release.
The witnesses who testified in the first murder investigation were threatened by the defendant before the fire broke out, which the DA’s office deemed “critical” information.
“Critically, the defendant in the other murder had threatened to have his associates kill the witnesses if they cooperated against him in the other trial,” the DA’s office said.
This information was never disclosed to the defense during Gwynn’s prosecution, according to the release.
The defendant in the other case was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison, which he is currently serving, the DA’s office said.
“The wrongful conviction of Daniel Gwynn, and his unjust imprisonment for nearly three decades, is a cautionary tale of tunnel vision in policing and prosecution,” David Napiorski, assistant supervisor of Federal Litigation said in the release. “Not only were Mr. Gwynn’s rights violated at trial, but his conviction and sentence to death row likely allowed the person actually responsible to escape accountability.”
Napiorski apologized to Marsha Smith’s family “for the retraumatization they have likely experienced.”
“They were deprived of justice in 1994 and are deserving of justice now,” Napiorski said.
During his time in prison, Gwynn used painting as an outlet “to heal and survive” and shared his work via the website, Art For Justice, which exhibits prisoners’ artwork.
“Painting has been my therapy, a form of meditation that helps me work through my issues,” Gwynn wrote alongside his paintings.
Gwynn said art allowed him to not only work on himself but also his legal case.
“My transformation came about after I was forced to sit still and take a real hard look at myself,” Gwynn wrote. “After I worked through the garbage in my head, I finally woke up and began to work on myself and my case.”
(ORMOND BEACH, Fla.) — Florida authorities said they believe they’ve recovered the remains of a 16-year-old girl who vanished in 2004 in a mystery that took almost two decades to unravel.
Detectives investigating the disappearance of Autumn Lane McClure found the remains while excavating her suspected burial site on Wednesday afternoon, the Volusia Sheriff’s Office said.
McClure, from Ormond Beach, Florida, was last seen on May 10, 2004. At the time, her boyfriend told authorities he dropped her off at the Volusia Mall, the sheriff’s office said.
In 2016, detectives re-interviewed McClure’s boyfriend and he admitted he lied in 2004, and said he didn’t drop McClure off at the mall, Sheriff Mike Chitwood said at a news conference Thursday. He said he really dropped her off at a bridge where she got into a car with her grocery store co-worker, Jessica Freeman, the sheriff said.
McClure had been staying with Freeman and her boyfriend, Brian Donley, then 31, at their trailer at the time of her disappearance, and the teenager was engaged in a sexual relationship with Freeman and Donley, the sheriff said.
Detectives later tracked down Freeman, who said she had no information, Chitwood said.
In 2021, authorities identified a person of interest when they received a phone call from Chris Miller, a man who knew Donley and Freeman, the sheriff said.
Chitwood said Miller told police, “I got to get this off my chest. … There is a teenage girl who is missing and is dead and is buried in Volusia County, and Brian Donley and/or Jessica Freeman had to have something to do with this.”
Miller made a controlled call to Freeman, during which Freeman disclosed that “she saw Brian Donley kill Autumn, and that he told a myriad of stories” of how he disposed of her, Chitwood said.
Donley “had the ability to instill fear in everybody,” Chitwood said, noting that it took years for “Miller to finally wake up and say, ‘Enough is enough, I can’t live with my conscience, as a father, knowing that I heard him tell people what he did.'”
Donley died on May 26, 2022, Chitwood said.
“The sad part is he’ll never face, in this world, for the evil that he perpetrated,” the sheriff said.
Detectives then went to re-interview Freeman, and prosecutors granted her immunity, the sheriff said.
Freeman admitted to investigators that “she came home one afternoon and saw Brian choking Autumn in the bathroom,” and “by the time she intervened, she saw Autumn was lifeless,” the sheriff said.
Authorities said they believe the motive was McClure planned to go back home, and Donley was afraid if she returned home and disclosed their sexual relationship, he’d face charges.
Freeman said, about two weeks after the murder, she saw plywood on the bedroom floor. Freeman said she asked Donley, “What happened to Autumn?” and he replied, “Shut up or the same thing will happen to you,” according to Chitwood.
In late 2023, Freeman re-contacted police and disclosed that McClure was buried underneath where their trailer was, the sheriff said.
Freeman told police that Donley would go back and visit the site, and Freeman was scared that “he would kill her as easily as he killed Autumn,” Chitwood said.
Police said they don’t suspect Freeman was involved in the murder.
McClure’s brother is “relieved” by the recovery of his sister’s remains, Chitwood said.
“He wasn’t shocked. I mean, there’s been rumors, but they’re, you know, happy that she’s been found,” he said.
(NEW YORK) — The FBI carried out a search Thursday at the Bronx home of Winnie Greco, the director of Asian affairs for New York City Mayor Eric Adams.
The search at Greco’s home follows a search in November at the Brooklyn home of Brianna Suggs, a campaign consultant and top fundraiser for the mayor. The FBI also seized electronic devices belonging to Adams days later.
Federal authorities have been investigating the mayor’s fundraising, ABC previously reported. The investigation involves a construction company, KSK Construction Group, based in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, sources told ABC News. KSK donated about $14,000 to Adams’ 2021 campaign.
Greco has also been under investigation by the city’s Department of Investigation over her government job, which is a referral from Mayor Adams.
The FBI declined to comment on the search Thursday.
A spokesman for the mayor said city hall had not been contacted by any law enforcement agency regarding today’s search.
“Our administration will always follow the law, and we always expect all our employees to adhere to the strictest ethical guidelines,” the spokesman said. “As we have repeatedly said, we don’t comment on matters that are under review, but will fully cooperate with any review underway. The mayor has not been accused of any wrongdoing.”
(NEW YORK) — Attorneys for columnist E. Jean Carroll, who successfully sued Donald Trump for defamation, objected Thursday to the former president’s attempt to pause enforcement of the $83.3 million judgment the jury ordered him to pay.
Trump had asked the court to stay enforcement of the monetary award while he appeals without requiring him to put cash in escrow or post bond.
If granted, that would leave Carroll with no assurance she would ever collect the money Trump now owes her, her attorneys said.
“The reasoning Trump offers in seeking this extraordinary relief boils down to nothing more than ‘trust me,'” Carroll’s attorneys wrote in a filing Thursday.
E. Jean Carroll says she plans to use $83 million on ‘something Donald Trump hates’ “He doesn’t offer any information about his finances or the nature and location of his assets,” they said. “He doesn’t specify what percentage of his assets are liquid or explain how Carroll might go about collecting.”
Carroll’s attorneys also noted that Trump failed to acknowledge the risks to his finances from the $454 million civil fraud judgment obtained by the New York attorney general.
A lawyer for the former president had requested that Judge Lewis Kaplan temporarily delay the judgment in the defamation case or permit Trump to post a bond for “an appropriate fraction” of the total damages. A New York appellate court on Wednesday rejected Trump’s attempt to do the same kind of thing in the civil fraud case, denying Trump’s attempt to freeze the judgment.
The ruling in the civil fraud case means, for now, that the former president is required to post a bond for hundreds of millions of dollars in the coming weeks. Defense attorneys had said Trump was prepared to post a $100 million bond, arguing he had no way to secure a higher amount without selling off some of his real estate.
Judge declines to grant stay of Trump’s $83.3 million judgment in Carroll defamation trial Earlier this month, Kaplan declined to grant a stay of Trump’s $83.3 million judgment in his defamation case and requested a written response from Carroll’s lawyers.
“The Court declines to grant any stay, much less an unsecured stay, without first having afforded plaintiff a meaningful opportunity to be heard,” Kaplan wrote in an order, setting a Thursday deadline for Carroll’s response and a March 2 deadline for Trump’s reply.
Carroll has vowed to use the judgment money on “something Donald Trump hates.”
“If it’ll cause him pain for me to give money to certain things, that’s my intent,” Carroll told George Stephanopoulos on “Good Morning America” in January, suggesting she would create a “fund for the women who have been sexually assaulted by Donald Trump.”
A jury had awarded Carroll over $83 million in damages to compensate her for two defamatory statements made by the former president in 2019 after she alleged Trump sexually assaulted her in 1996. A separate jury last year found that Trump sexually assaulted Carroll and defamed her, awarding her $5 million.
Trump has repeatedly denied the allegation since 2019.
(NEW YORK) — New York City officials have vacated a Bronx furniture store that was converted to house dozens of migrants in “unsafe living conditions,” according to the New York City Department of Buildings.
The vacate order was issued over “hazardous life-threatening conditions, lack of natural light and ventilation, and severe overcrowding,” according to the DOB.
At least 10 people were transported from the store on Wednesday just days after dozens of migrants were found in a Queens furniture store run by the same person, according to the DOB.
There were 74 migrants located at the store in Queens, most from west Africa, when that location was inspected Monday night.
Others may have relocated on their own or scattered when authorities arrived on the scene, according to the city. The city left up signs on how to get services on the shuttered storefront gate in case more migrants arrived later at night.
Inspectors were called to a two-story commercial building in the Bronx to investigate an “illegal conversion” when they found the store had been illegally converted into sleeping quarters with 45 beds packed tightly across the first floor and cellar, the DOB said.
E-bikes, extension cords, space heaters and hot plates were found throughout the building, the DOB said.
The mayor’s chief of staff, Camille Joseph Varlack, said the city became aware of the store when complaints were filed.
“We went in and found individuals that were living in unsafe conditions. As we would with any New Yorker that we find living in an unsafe condition, we immediately vacated those locations and referred those individuals to additional resources,” Varlack said.
New York City has been faced with a crisis over housing and feeding migrants that have been bused to the city from the southern border by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott as part of his Operation Lone Star plan. There have been 37,900 migrants sent to New York City since August 2022, as of Feb. 16, according to the Texas governor’s office.
(AUSTIN, Texas) — A federal judge granted a preliminary injunction Thursday to temporarily prevent one of the strictest immigration bills in the country from going into effect in Texas on March 5.
The law, known as SB 4, would authorize local and state law enforcement to arrest migrants they suspect crossed into the state illegally. It would also also give judges the power to order migrants to be transported to a port of entry and returned to Mexico regardless of their country of origin.
Texas immediately appealed the decision, attacking the Biden administration.
“We have appealed this incorrect decision,” Attorney General Ken Paxton said in a statement. “Texas has a clear right to defend itself from the drug smugglers, human traffickers, cartels, and legions of illegal aliens crossing into our State as a consequence of the Biden Administration’s deliberate policy choices.”
Republican Gov. Greg Abbott also dinged the Biden administration. President Joe Biden has argued that Congress needs to pass the bipartisan immigration deal, which includes changes to asylum protocols, funding to bolster immigration review and hire additional Border Patrol agents as well as new emergency powers for officials.
“We will not back down in our fight to protect our state — and our nation — from President Biden’s border crisis,” Abbott said in a statement. “The President of the United States has a constitutional duty to enforce federal laws protecting States, including laws already on the books that mandate the detention of illegal immigrants.”
He continued: “Texas has the right to defend itself because of President Biden’s ongoing failure to fulfill his duty to protect our state from the invasion at our southern border. Even from the bench, this District Judge acknowledged that this case will ultimately be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court.”
Both Biden and former President Donald Trump were scheduled to visit the southern border on Thursday.
U.S. District Judge David Alan Ezra wrote in the opinion: “In the final analysis, it is clear that the Plaintiffs, particularly the United States, will suffer grave irreparable harm were SB 4 to take effect, especially where Texas has other aspects of Operation Lone Star in full force. The balance of equities unequivocally weighs in favor of denying the stay pending appeal.”
The lawsuit was filed in December 2023 by the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas and the Texas Civil Rights Project on behalf of El Paso County, Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center and American Gateways. The lawsuit was consolidated with one filed by the Department of Justice.
Ezra, who was appointed by Ronald Reagan, called into question SB 4’s constitutionality, stating in the 114-page ruling that the Supremacy Clause and previous Supreme Court rulings “affirm that states may not exercise immigration enforcement power except as authorized by the federal government.”
He also said that the law would conflict with certain aspects of federal immigration law and that it would be detrimental to the United States’ foreign relations and treaty obligations.
“If allowed to proceed, SB 4 could open the door to each state passing its own version of immigration laws,” Ezra wrote. “The effect would moot the uniform regulation of immigration throughout the country and force the federal government to navigate a patchwork of inconsistent regulations. SB 4 threatens the fundamental notion that the United States must regulate immigration with one voice.”
The ACLU of Texas wrote on social media, “This is a win for Texas values, human rights, and the Constitution. The State could try to appeal today’s decision — but we’re not backing down.”
“#SB4 would let police arrest people over suspicions about immigration status — putting communities of color at greater risk of racial profiling,” the group continued. “We aim to strike down this law for good.”
Marisa Limón Garza, executive director of Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center, told ABC News that Thursday’s ruling is significant, but that the court battle to stop the law from ever going into effect is still ongoing.
“So this is a huge victory for Texans and in particularly Texans of color. We are so glad to see this positive momentum. We know that the battle may be won for now, but the war continues and so we are ready for that,” she said. “We know the fight continues and we’re ready to continue to do our work to ensure the safety of all Texans.”
