Nina Perales, a lawyer for the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, disputes the facts of the state’s lawsuit and said it’s bound to fail regardless, because it stretches the meaning of SB 4. The law doesn’t require local police to book or fingerprint people based on suspicion that they might be in the country illegally, she said.

“The essence of this lawsuit is claiming that San Antonio police officers should have stepped in the shoes of ICE officers and arrested the smuggling victims,” Perales said. “But SB 4 does not require local police to make immigration arrests and the Constitution forbids it.”