A federal judge in Texas indefinitely blocked President Biden’s order banning most deportations for 100 days, dealing a blow to the administration’s efforts to turn back many of former President Donald Trump’s tightened immigration policies.
District Judge Drew T🐎ipton issued a preliminary injunction on enforcement of the ban late Tuesday.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton earlier sued to block the ban, claiming it was “unconstitutional” and would cause substantial economic hardships on the Lone Star State to carry it out.
Tipton, a Trump appointee, in January temporarily blocked Biden’s order for 14 days because it failed “to provid🐽e any concrete, reasonable justification for the 100-day pause.”
“In the instant case, the January 20 Memorandum and the corresponding administrative record fail to indicate the appropriateness and rationality of DHS’s ‘path’ in implementing a 100- day pause on removals. In other words, the Court, even with additional briefing and the administrative record at its disposal, still cannot discern how DHS’s stated concerns are logically connected with – let alone ‘determinative’ of – the action taken, the 100-day pause,” Tipton wrote in a 105-page ruling.
Tipton also sided with Paxton’s argument that Texas would be harmed by the order.
“Texas claimed injury from unanticipated detention costs is sufficiently concrete and imminent. The harm is concrete or de facto because Texas incurs real financial costs in detaining criminal aliens,” Tipton wrote.
Biden’s 100-day ban would have applied to any immigrants in the country illegally who have received final deportation orders with exceptions for terrorism or espionage.
It also carved out exceptions for people who had not been in the US before Nov. 1 and those who voluntarily agreed to waive any r๊ights to rema🧔in in the country.
Paxton also argued that Biden’s moratorium violated an agreement reached between the Department of Homeland Security and several states, including Texas, to provide notice of immigration policy changes and to give them six months to review the policy and suggest changes before it can move ahead.
In a statement after he filed suit, Paxton accused the Biden administration of compelling DHS to violate federal immigration law and ♌to breach its agreement to cooperate with Texas on immigration policy.
“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,” he said at the time.
The president campaigned on reversing Trump’s immigration policies and began signing a flurry of executive orders beginning on inauguration day, calling for a review of Trump’s policies, extending protections for young immigrants in the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, and halting the ban on travel from mainly Muslim nations.
It’s not clear if the Biden administration will appeal Tipton’s ruling.
With Post wires