AUSTIN (Talk1370.com) -- Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton made good on a threat Friday, filing a complaint to seek a temporary restraining order halting the Biden administration's freeze on deportations of illegal aliens.
The freeze is one of the 17 executive actions President Joe Biden took on his first afternoon in office, just hours after being sworn in at the U.S. Capitol.
Paxton says the freeze violates the U.S. Constitution, federal immigration and administrative law, and a contractual agreement between Texas and the Department of Homeland Security.
In a letter to acting DHS Secretary David Pekoske on Thursday, Paxton said "border states like Texas pay a particularly high price when the federal government fails to faithfully execute our country’s immigration laws."
"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," Paxton said in a statement announcing the lawsuit Friday. "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. 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."