A federal appeals court on Friday sided with the Biden administration's Department of Justice and kept a temporary block on an Iowa law that makes it a state crime for a person to be in Iowa if they are in the U.

A lower court had blocked the Republican-backed law that made it a state crime to enter Iowa after being deported or denied entry to the United States.

A state law that would allow the arrest and deportation of immigrants in Iowa if they had previously been denied entry into the country will remain blocked after a federal appeals court ruling issued Friday.

A U.S. federal appeals court has upheld the injunction blocking enforcement of an Iowa law that makes illegal immigration a state crime. The Friday decision denied an appeal from Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird,

A three-judge panel of the St. Louis-based Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals held that Iowa’s statute is likely preempted by federal immigration law, because enforcement of Iowa’s law would invade the U.S. government’s interest in enforcing federal immigration law.