WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday (October 19) invited the solicitor general to file a brief expressing the views of the United States in Iowa's bid to revive its state immigration-enforcement law, according to the court's docket in Bird v. Iowa Migrant Movement for Justice, No. 26-49. The step — known as a call for the views of the solicitor general — is not a decision to hear Iowa's appeal, not a ruling on the law, and does not authorize any enforcement: Attorney General Brenna Bird's petition, filed July 2, remains pending while the justices wait for the federal government's position. Reuters separately reported the request.

The law at issue is Senate File 2340, enacted in 2024 and now Iowa Code chapter 718C. It makes it a state offense — an aggravated misdemeanor at base, with felony levels in specified circumstances — for a noncitizen who has previously been denied admission, excluded, deported or removed from the United States to enter, attempt to enter or be found in Iowa. On conviction, a state judge must order the person to return to the country from which they entered, refusing to comply is a separate felony, and the statute also bars prosecutors from pausing a case because a federal immigration-status determination is pending.

The law has never taken effect. U.S. District Judge Stephen Locher in Des Moines blocked it before its July 2024 start date, and on October 23, 2025, an Eighth Circuit panel — in an opinion by Judge Duane Benton — affirmed the injunction, holding that the law likely conflicts with federal immigration law in every application because it interferes with the enforcement discretion Congress gave federal officials, including whether, when and how to pursue a case and where a person may be removed to. The full Eighth Circuit declined to rehear the case on February 4, 2026, over a dissent by Judge David Stras. Iowa's petition asks the Supreme Court two questions: whether the challengers could sue before enforcement, and whether overlap with the existing federal reentry crime is enough to strike the state law down on its face.

The challengers are an immigrant advocacy group and two Iowa green-card holders whose earlier removal orders were later waived — a detail the Eighth Circuit relied on in finding the law arguably reached even people with lawful status — and they are represented by the ACLU. Twenty-five states, led by Oklahoma and Florida, backed Iowa in an August amicus brief, warning that the Eighth Circuit's reasoning could threaten other state laws that overlap federal crimes. The federal government's own history with the law adds a twist: the Justice Department under President Biden sued Iowa over the statute in 2024, and the United States dismissed that suit in 2025 after President Trump took office — so the solicitor general must now state a position on the same question Washington originally raised against the law.

For now, nothing changes on the ground: the Iowa law stays blocked and reentry prosecutions in Iowa remain a federal matter. No deadline has been set for the solicitor general's brief, and invitations of this kind typically hold a petition for months. The federal offense Iowa copied is already among the most heavily prosecuted crimes in the country — the U.S. Sentencing Commission reports 18,204 illegal-reentry cases were sentenced in fiscal 2025, about 80 percent of all federal immigration cases and up 45 percent from 12,550 the year before — a scale both sides cite in arguing over whether states should be able to run parallel systems of their own.

Sources: U.S. Supreme Court docket and October 19, 2026 order list, Bird v. Iowa Migrant Movement for Justice, No. 26-49 (as reported by The American Quorum and Law360); Reuters, on the October 19 request (as reported by The American Quorum); Eighth Circuit opinion, Iowa Migrant Movement for Justice v. Bird, No. 24-2263 (October 23, 2025); SCOTUSblog case page; U.S. Sentencing Commission, Quick Facts: Illegal Reentry Offenses, FY2025. The Supreme Court has not decided whether to hear the case, and the Iowa law remains blocked.