Supreme Court Justice Warns Texas Will “Sow Chaos” With Latest Ruling

On Tuesday, the Supreme Court allowed the country’s toughest immigration law—Texas Senate Bill 4—to go into effect. But not every member of the nation’s highest court agreed with the decision.

In a dissenting opinion, Justice Sonia Sotomayor argued that the court was inviting “further chaos and crisis in immigration enforcement.”

“The Court gives a green light to a law that will upend the longstanding federal-state balance of power and sow chaos, when the only court to consider the law concluded that it is likely unconstitutional,” she wrote.

Justices Ketanji Brown Jackson and Elena Kagan also dissented from the opinion.

In practice, the law will allow state police to arrest anyone they suspect to be an undocumented immigrant, and charge them with misdemeanors or felonies in the event of repeat offenses. It will also allow them to deport undocumented people back to points of entry along the U.S.-Mexico border. But S.B. 4 and its myriad allowances for local authorities also holds the potential to threaten foreign relations between the two nations, with Texas making judgments otherwise relegated to the federal government and allowing the state to ignore federal immigration standards and court proceedings.

The ultimate legality of the law—which the Department of Justice has argued is unconstitutional—is still undergoing consideration by the ultraconservative Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

“The Court confronts a state immigration law that will transform the balance of power at the border and have life altering consequences for noncitizens in Texas,” Sotomayor wrote.

Still, the reality of Tuesday’s decision already warranted celebration among some of Texas’s most conservative officials.

“Texas has defeated the Biden Administration’s and ACLU’s emergency motions at the Supreme Court. Our immigration law, SB 4, is now in effect. As always, it’s my honor to defend Texas and its sovereignty, and to lead us to victory in court,” said Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott also chimed in, describing the 6-3 decision as “clearly a positive development.”

On Tuesday, the Supreme Court handed Texas Governor Greg Abbott the reins to enforce a contentious law in the state’s radical immigration policy, Operation Lone Star.

Within less than 24 hours, the Supreme Court first allowed a pause on the new law to lapse, then issued an indefinite stay, and finally, on Tuesday afternoon, issued an opinion that canceled that stay and allowed the law to go into effect while litigation continues in lower courts.

“The time may come, in this case or another, when this Court is forced to conclude that an administrative stay has effectively become a stay pending appeal and review it accordingly. But at this juncture in this case, that conclusion would be premature,” read an opinion by Justice Amy Coney Barrett.

Texas Senate Bill 4 could still be blocked at a later date. But for now, it will allow Texas police to question and arrest anyone they believe might have illegally crossed the U.S.-Mexico border, and will grant police the authority to charge them with misdemeanors for first-time offenders and felonies for repeat offenders. It will also allow Texas law enforcement to deport immigrants back to a port of entry along the border. The controversial bill was signed into law by Abbott and was originally supposed to take effect on March 5—until the Justice Department and several civil rights groups got involved, arguing that the bill went way too far, stepping on the toes of the responsibilities of the federal government.

This is a developing story.

Sketchy real estate empire nepo baby Jared Kushner looks at the devastation in Gaza and sees one thing: dollar signs.

Kushner praised the “very valuable” potential of Gaza’s beachfront property during a talk at Harvard University earlier this month, and essentially advocated for ethnic cleansing so Israel could develop the region.

“Gaza’s waterfront property could be very valuable … if people would focus on building up livelihoods,” Kushner told his interviewer, Harvard’s Middle East Initiative faculty chair Tarek Masoud, on March 8.

“It’s a little bit of an unfortunate situation there, but from Israel’s perspective I would do my best to move the people out and then clean it up,” Kushner continued. “But I don’t think that Israel has stated that they don’t want the people to move back there afterwards.”

Kushner said Israel should focus on displacing civilians from the southern city of Rafah, which has been under renewed bombardment and threat of an Israeli invasion. Kushner suggested moving those people “with diplomacy” into Egypt, on an entirely different continent.

“I would just bulldoze something in the Negev, I would try to move people in there,” he said, referring to the desert. “I think that’s a better option, so you can go in and finish the job.”

Kushner’s use of the phrase “finish the job” echoes a comment his father-in-law Donald Trump made just a few days prior. The former president told Fox & Friends he was “on board” with the Israeli army’s tactics in Gaza, saying, “You’ve got to finish the problem.”

Kushner also mused at Harvard whether there was anything left in Gaza to preserve.

“I am not sure there is much left of Gaza at this point,” he said. “If you think about even the construct, Gaza was not really a historical precedent. It was the result of a war. You had tribes in different places and then Gaza became a thing.”

The region occupied by modern-day Israel and Gaza has been inhabited through different groups throughout its history, but it has existed as a hub of civilization since the fifteenth century BCE. The countries’ current borders, which Kushner cites, have really only existed since the 1940s at the behest of the United Kingdom.

Since October 7, more than 30,000 people have been killed by Israeli attacks, while survivors are on the brink of famine. The majority of the victims have been children.

Kushner is married to Trump’s daughter Ivanka, meaning he is also a fraudulent real estate nepo son-in-law. During Trump’s presidential term, Kushner served as a top Middle East adviser and was instrumental in the Abraham Accords, which saw Israel normalize ties with a number of Gulf states. His horrific comments at Harvard are indicative of what Trump’s Middle East policy will look like should he be reelected in November.

Former Trump White House aide Peter Navarro made one last stand in front of television crews on Tuesday mere moments before getting thrown in the clink—but his fiery speech, framed to aid himself and the former president, was interrupted by a brutal fact-check from none other than Fox News.

“It was only with my case that somehow that has changed,” Navarro said, steps away from the Miami prison, claiming that he was entitled to “absolute testimonial immunity.”

“And here’s where the homework is, because the big constitutional separation of powers are these: Can Congress compel a senior White House adviser, what they call the alter ego of a president, to testify before Congress?” Navarro continued. “And executive privilege goes back to George Washington and his remarks to the Congress regarding the Jay Treaty, and he said, very simply and clearly, succinctly, elegantly, that to write to the Congress, he said, I cannot command you, as members of Congress, to come to me. You cannot command me to come to you.”

That warranted an immediate interjection by Fox News host Sandra Smith, who after a quick correction to Navarro’s rant, completely cut away from the beleaguered Trump ally to cover President Joe Biden’s campaign stops in Nevada and Arizona.

“To fact-check there, it is no longer an alleged crime that he’ll be serving this four-month sentence for,” Smith said. “He has obviously been convicted, and there was no evidence that would have excluded him, per executive privilege, from testifying.”

Navarro was ordered to appear at the federal prison in Miami by 2 p.m. on Tuesday, ready to physically but not mentally surrender. He had filed an emergency stay appeal on Friday to avoid spending the next four months in jail after he ignored a subpoena from Congress, but Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts threw that plea out the window on Monday.

Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene is celebrating the fact that her district received federal funds for infrastructure improvements—and conveniently ignoring the fact that she voted against the budget bill that made it all possible.

In a Monday night email newsletter to her constituents, the Georgia Republican included a link to a story about a runway extension at the Richard B. Russell regional airport in Floyd County. The article cites a press release from Greene’s office, which says the congresswoman “meticulously sought out projects that would improve quality of life, increase economic and social development, assist localities with vital funding needs, and harness community support.”

The runway expansion, and other earmarks Greene “netted” for county projects, are part of the fiscal year 2024 budget bill, which President Joe Biden signed into law on March 6. Neither Greene nor the article mention the fact that Greene voted against the appropriations bill.

Greene wasn’t alone in trying to take credit for what the bill helped her district accomplish. Representative Lauren Boebert, Greene’s fellow far-right Republican and former work bestie, said in a Monday press release that she “can’t wait for the ribbon cuttings” on all the projects that the bill would fund in her district.

Boebert voted against the bill. She has also moved out of her district and is running for election in a different one on the other side of the state, sparking accusations of carpet-bagging.

This is hardly the first time Republicans have fought crucial federal funding bills, only to eagerly welcome the money. Biden dragged Boebert in August for voting against the Inflation Reduction Act, and then turning around and celebrating the funds helping build a wind farm in her district.

At least 14 Republicans also voted against Biden’s $1.2 billion infrastructure bill, only to celebrate how the measure benefited their districts after it passed. They include Senator John Cornyn, Representative Nancy Mace, and Senator Tommy Tuberville, whom Biden directly called out for his duplicity.