Texas Attorney General Sues Biden Administration Over Deportation Freeze
“This complete abdication of the Department of Homeland Security’s (‘DHS’) obligation to enforce federal immigration law is unlawful and will seriously and irreparably harm the State of Texas and its citizens.”
Among Biden’s many initial executive orders was a halt on deportations. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton wasted no time reacting to this and filed a lawsuit against the administration.
Biden is trying to undo pretty much everything Trump did on immigration and is expected to go much further.
Paxton filed the complaint Friday afternoon:
“In one of its first of dozens of steps that harm Texas and the nation as a whole, the Biden administration directed DHS to violate federal immigration law and breach an agreement to consult and cooperate with Texas on that law. Our state defends the largest section of the southern border in the nation. Failure to properly enforce the law will directly and immediately endanger our citizens and law enforcement personnel,” said Attorney General Paxton. “DHS itself has previously acknowledged that such a freeze on deportations will cause concrete injuries to Texas. I am confident that these unlawful and perilous actions cannot stand. The rule of law and security of our citizens must prevail.”
The complaint states DHS failed to notify and consult with Texas before issuing the January 20th Memorandum. The memo also “exceeds the authority DHS can delegate to Acting Secretary [David] Pekoske and is therefore ultra vires.”
Ultra vires means “beyond the powers.” It “[D]actions taken by government bodies or corporations that exceed the scope of power given to them by laws or corporate charters.”
Paxton said that failure to remove illegal aliens violates 8 U.S.C § 1231, which says that “when an alien is ordered removed, the Attorney General shall remove the alien from the United States within a period of 90 days.”
The January 20th Memorandum pauses removals for 100 days.
Paxton threatened the lawsuit via Twitter on Thursday::
When the @JoeBiden admin breaks the law, I take action. I have told @DHSgov to immediately rescind its illegal, unconscionable deportation freeze—or TX will sue.
As AG, I will always put Americans, Texans first—not dangerous aliens who must be deported!https://t.co/anW89QJiPP pic.twitter.com/ehsucOe6Ks
— Texas Attorney General (@TXAG) January 22, 2021
His office released this statement:
Response DHS’s Unlawful Pause on Removals
Dear Mr. Pekoske:
Yesterday you ordered a blanket halt on nearly all deportations of illegal aliens. This complete abdication of the Department of Homeland Security’s (“DHS”) obligation to enforce federal immigration law is unlawful and will seriously and irreparably harm the State of Texas and its citizens.
Specifically, your memorandum directed DHS to impose “an immediate pause on removals of any noncitizen with a final order of removal [subject to limited exceptions] for 100 days to go into effect as soon as practical and no later than January 22, 2021.”1 Should such a directive be legal or left unchallenged, DHS could attempt to renew that directive indefinitely or issue a similar directive for an even longer period of time. That would allow the Biden Administration to grant blanket amnesty to the vast majority of the illegal aliens in this country with the stroke of a pen and without congressional approval.
Border states like Texas pay a particularly high price when the federal government fails to faithfully execute our country’s immigration laws. Your attempted halt on almost all deportations would increase the cost to Texas caused by illegal immigration. DHS itself has previously acknowledged that such a “pause on . . . removals” will cause “concrete injuries to Texas.” See Agreement between Department of Homeland Security and the State of Texas (“Agreement”) § 2.
Paxton clearly has the backing of Texas Governor Greg Abbott:
President Biden is trying to halt deportations of illegal aliens who already have a final order of removal from the U.S.
This abandons the obligation to enforce federal immigration laws.
Texas is fighting this attempt to grant blanket amnesty.https://t.co/9Zafo9151y
— Greg Abbott (@GregAbbott_TX) January 22, 2021
Arizona Central outlines the steps Biden has already taken:
The Biden administration’s decision to suspend deportations for many immigrants over the next 100 days surprised even immigrant advocates pushing for a reversal of former President Donald Trump’s hardline immigration policies.
The announcement by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security late Wednesday came after President Joe Biden signed several immigration-related executive orders just hours after his inauguration.
Those orders, including halting further construction of Trump’s border wall, ending the so-called Muslim ban, fortifying the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program from legal attacks and rescinding Trump’s aggressive immigration enforcement plan, had been signaled by Biden’s transition team beforehand.
Biden is on a mission to be the un-Trump, and he will be cheered by the media every step of the way.
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Comments
The left with raise cane. Remind them it’s the flipside to sanctuary cities.
Not really. Sanctuary cities are legal. Texas has a good argument that this is not. The acting secretary probably has statutory authority to defer deportation in individual cases, but not for everyone. And he can stop seeking deportation on new cases, but he still has to deport ones who already have a final order against them. At least that’s how Paxton sees it, and I’m not aware of anything that says otherwise, so it seems to me that he should prevail.
Last I checked Harboring an Illegal Alien was still a Federal Statute. It is legal for political expediency not law. Antifa get’s to riot. The Tea Party gets crushed.
Sanctuary cities do not harbor anyone.
Sorry meant to down vote
@Milhouse. “Sanctuary cites do not harbor .”. Are you under the influence of intoxicants? The very definition of sanctuary implies harboring.
No, it does not. You seem to have no idea what a “sanctuary city” is.
Sanctuary cities do not harbor anyone, and are 100% legal. They are simply exercising their constitution right to refuse to assist federal law enforcement.
You’re proceeding under the erroneous assumption that laws apply to Democrat administrations.
They do, and the courts will enforce it.
paxton must not have gotten the memo–unfortunately for us, texas has no standing and neither does he
He may be legally right but he will be <b?Roberts Wrong. As with the Chief Justice and the brethren it is all about politics not law. Just ask Parler and that doozy of a District Judge who found a way for a contract not to be a contract.
You mean the “contract” that reserved to Amazon AWS the right to terminate service either on (1) 30 days notice or (2) immediately if in AWS’s opinion the violation is so egregious 30 days notice cannot be realistically given?
That non-Contract?
Face it, the executives that control the AWS business aren’t stupid. Neither are the lawyers that write the AWS contracts and TOS. And AWS has it all tied up with a bow on it that they can do whatever they wish, whenever they want, with no legal repercussions whatsoever.
And having said that, please don’t get me wrong. What AWS/Google/Apple did was really shitty and uncalled for and just downright wrong. But if you make a contract with the Devil then you should be prepared to get burned. That is all.
♠
This, and in spades. The default TOS for AWS (and every other cloud provider) is designed to handle the free accounts they give out like candy and the individual developer doinking around on his own dime.
Anyone running a real business on a cloud provider who doesn’t start the conversation with their vendor rep with “Toss out this BS TOS, and let’s see one with real teeth in it” is just asking to get screwed.
None of this is new. I used to work in the VAR space, and vetting your contracts with your upstream vendor and building business continuity into your relationships is basic due diligence. People getting deplatformed off of AWS because of this are, to some extent, getting what they paid for.
This District Court’s decision was based on politics not law. Parler could have had the most iron clad contract ever written and this District Judge would have ruled the same way.
If I ran IT for a large firm, I would now be very cautious about AWS as a platform.
That is just not true. You have absolutely not the faintest smidgen of a basis for saying it. The judge expressed no opinion on the merits of Parler’s case. She simply said they hadn’t shown the likelihood of winning that is required in order to get the extraordinary relief that they were asking for.
That’s an outright lie. The judge did no such thing, and you know it damned well.
It’s simply time for red states to follow blue states’ lead in refusing to enforce or honor federal edicts.
I don’t think the states have to enforce federal law. There are some SCOTUS cases in the past that say as much. Most recent one I can recall is *PRINTZ*, where the county sheriff refused to do background checks on gun sales.
I agree, but that’s not what this case is about.
It’s about the federal government not enforcing its own laws,
to the detriment of one (or more) of the states.
I wasn’t referring to this case specifically, but a general approach.
Who has suggested they should enforce them? Which red state, exactly, has ever enforced a federal law it didn’t like? Name one example, please, of this ever happening. States enforce federal laws only if they want to and the federal government also wants them to. That’s how it’s always been.
Let 1000 lawsuits bloom.
Will the lawsuit prevail? Almost assuredly not because the Federal courts will rule in favor of whatever the regime wants.
Is the suit pointless? No, but not for the reason you think. After the 2nd paragraph of the Declaration of Independence is a list of abuses over time. A new list is being built.
Subotai Bahadur
Not true. This case may fail on its merits, but if it deserves to win it will probably win.