By Daniel Wiessner

(Reuters) - A U.S. appeals court on Wednesday kept on hold a Republican-backed Texas law that would let state authorities arrest and prosecute people suspected of illegally crossing the U.S.-Mexico border - a statute that President Joe Biden's administration has argued intrudes on the authority of the federal government.

A panel of the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in a 2-1 ruling denied a request by Texas to let the law take effect while the state's appeal of a judge's ruling blocking it plays out at the appellate court.

(Reporting by Daniel Wiessner in Albany, New York; Edsiting by Andrew Heavens)