Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a motion Friday for a temporary restraining order to request that the courts stop Biden administration actions that are expected to let in an increased flood of immigrants.
Title 42, a rule that provided increased immigration restrictions due to the COVID-19 pandemic, expired Thursday along with the pandemic public emergency declaration. As the restrictions expired, the Department of Homeland Security announced new immigration measures, including a return to Title 8 rules.
“Our overall approach is to build lawful pathways for people to come to the United States, and to impose tougher consequences on those who choose not to use those pathways,” said DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. “We are taking this approach within the constraints of a broken immigration system that Congress has not fixed for more than two decades, and without the resources we need – personnel, facilities, transportation, and others – that we have requested of Congress and that we were not given.”
According to Paxton, his motion will prevent President Joe Biden from enacting “an unlawful policy that releases illegal immigrants into communities across America as record numbers of aliens surge to the United States-Mexico border,” as of Friday. He also said that the administration’s new program allows it to “‘parole’ illegal aliens into the United States without even issuing a notice that they’re required to appear before an immigration judge.”
Instead, the attorney general said that the new policy “simply requests that illegal immigrants give a mailing address and promise to appear at an ICE facility within 60 days to ask for an immigration-court date,” and that the deadline is “not firm.”
“There are no words that can fully describe the unmitigated catastrophe that Joe Biden has created on our southern border,” said Paxton. “What we are watching in real time is the systematic, deliberate, and intentional destruction of American border security. There’s simply no other explanation for what Biden is doing. As the number of daily border crossings hits record highs and Title 42 expires, the Biden Administration has announced they will release thousands of illegal immigrants every day—without even requiring a court date. To any reasonable American, this is insanity. Biden’s effort to subject Texas communities to the costs and chaos of unending, out-of-control illegal immigration will not go unchallenged, and we’re taking him to court to stop this unlawful policy.”
Already, a federal judge has blocked a Biden administration plan for a mass release of migrants from Border Patrol custody set to take place along with the end of Title 42.
In Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott has also criticized the Biden administration’s recent immigration moves.
“Texas National Guard soldiers and DPS troopers held the line against a possible surge in illegal crossings when the Biden Administration pulled Border Patrol agents,” he said in a Saturday tweet. “Biden has abandoned his responsibility to secure the border. Texas continues to fill the gaps.”