Law enforcement in Georgia, at least for now, may verify the immigration status of criminal suspects who fail to produce proper identification, a federal appeals court ruled Monday.

A three-judge panel of 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said that a lower court's hold blocking that section of the state's 2011 immigration law should be lifted. It was not immediately clear when that would happen.

The panel did leave in place a part of the injunction blocking the prosecution of people who knowingly harbor or transport an illegal immigrant during the commission of a crime.

A lower court must still rule on both of those issues, which are part of a broader challenge to the law by activist groups and labor unions. Monday's decision dealt only with preliminary injunctions.

The decision follows a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling upholding parts of a similar law in Arizona. The Atlanta-based court referenced that decision in its opinion to lift the injunction on the verification section, also known as section 8.