Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador delivers a speech during the 86th anniversary of the nationalization of oil at the Petroleos Mexicanos (PEMEX) headquarters in Mexico City on March 18, 2024. (PHOTO / AFP)

MEXICO CITY/HOUSTON - Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador on Wednesday criticized a controversial new immigration law in the US state of Texas as "draconian".

The law, known as Senate Bill 4 (SB4), would allow US state and local law enforcement to arrest and deport people suspected of crossing the US southern border without authorization. Yet the law was blocked by an appeals court hours after the US Supreme Court passed it.

During his daily press conference, Lopez Obrador said SB4 violates human rights and his government will not accept deportations from Texas.

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"Of course, we are against this draconian law (that is) completely opposite and contrary to human rights," he said.

"We are not going to stand by and do nothing, that is the answer," he told reporters at the National Palace in Mexico City.

Earlier on Tuesday, the Supreme Court rejected an emergency request by the Biden administration, allowing Texas to temporally enforce its controversial immigration law while litigation continues in lower courts

Several Latin American governments, non-governmental organizations, and immigration rights activists also blasted the law. 

Blocked by court 

The 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday night put on hold the highly controversial Texas law, ahead of oral arguments before the court Wednesday.

Earlier on Tuesday, the Supreme Court rejected an emergency request by the Biden administration, allowing Texas to temporally enforce its controversial immigration law while litigation continues in lower courts.

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"The court gives a green light to a law that will upend the longstanding federal-state balance of power and sow chaos," liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in a dissenting opinion.

A group of migrant people tries to cross a barbed wire fence to reach the US side, as seen from Ciudad Juarez, Mexico on March 20, 2024. (PHOTO / AFP)

However, the Supreme Court didn't address whether the state law that allows Texas police to arrest migrants crossing the US-Mexico border illegally is constitutional.

On Tuesday, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said that the Texas law "will not only make communities in Texas less safe, it will also burden law enforcement and sow chaos and confusion at our southern border".

The Biden administration had argued that immigration enforcement is solely within the federal government's jurisdiction.

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Immigrant rights groups filed a lawsuit against the Texas law one day after Abbott signed the bill in December.

According to the plaintiffs, the bill violates the federal constitution since Congress has given the federal government sole authority over immigration enforcement. It will also prevent immigrants from requesting asylum in the country, a civil right they have regardless of how they enter the United States.

The American Civil Liberties Union and the Texas Civil Rights Project filed the lawsuit in an Austin federal court on behalf of El Paso County, the largest border county in Texas, as well as two other immigrant rights organizations, the El Paso-based Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center and Austin-based American Gateways.