The Biden administration suffered a legal blow when a federal judge on Friday struck down guidelines meant to limit the number of illegal immigrants that can be arrested or deported.
U.S. District Court Judge Drew Tipton declared the directive, issued in September, to be unlawful.
Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas issued a memorandum to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) limiting arrests and deportations to those posing a threat to national security and public safety or who had more recently crossed the border.
The Mayorkas memo refers to illegal immigrants as “undocumented noncitizens.”
The Washington Post reported at the time what the new directive meant: “The fact that someone is an undocumented immigrant ‘should not alone be the basis’ of a decision to detain and deport them from the United States.”
In other words, in the eyes of the administration, simply violating the laws of a sovereign nation isn’t criminal enough to pursue.
SCOOP: DHS issues new arrest and deportation guidelines to immigration agents https://t.co/cgzvS4zyun
— Maria Sacchetti (@mariasacchetti) September 30, 2021
RELATED: Texas Judge Demands Biden Admin Stop Releasing ‘COVID Infected’ Illegal Immigrants Into Community
Biden Admin’s Attempts to Limit Arrests of Illegal Immigrants Gets Knocked Down
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Judge Tipton, an appointee of former President Donald Trump, struck down the DHS directive, saying it doesn’t square with federal law.
The federal government, he said, “offers an implausible construction of federal law that flies in the face of the limitations imposed by Congress.”
He went on to suggest the government has discretion on an individual basis but can’t dictate such a broad counter policy to the law.
“True, the Executive Branch has case-by-case discretion to abandon immigration enforcement as to a particular individual,” he said.
“This case, however, does not involve individualized decision-making. Instead, this case is about a rule that binds Department of Homeland Security officials in a generalized, prospective manner—all in contravention of Congress’s detention mandate.”
Tipton’s ruling is in response to a lawsuit filed by Texas and Louisiana.
The Biden Administration lost another significant court case. A court prevented the Administration from narrowing ICE arrest and detention grounds. The loss comes after a controversial claim of President Biden on Jimmy Kimmel Live . . . https://t.co/BcURztdIX7
— Jonathan Turley (@JonathanTurley) June 11, 2022
RELATED: Federal Judge Blocks Enforcement Of Biden’s 100 Day Ban On Deportations
Arrests Plummeted
In their annual report for 2021, ICE released statistics that indicated the Biden administration’s efforts to limit the arrests and deportations of illegal immigrants had worked.
In 2019, there were over 143,000 arrests and 267,000 deportations. In 2020, over 103,000 arrests and 185,000 deportations.
In 2021, those numbers had dropped to just over 74,000 arrests (roughly 48% decrease from 2019) and 59,000 deportations (a 77% decrease from 2019).
ICE releases FY 2021 report showing drop in arrests, deportations as Biden-era rules went into effecthttps://t.co/Q6x2H6L0Xt
— Fox News (@FoxNews) March 11, 2022
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton celebrated the ruling, calling it a “massive defeat for the Biden administration.”
“He tried to throw out immigration law, saying DHS didn’t have to detain criminal illegals. The court now says he must,” Paxton tweeted.
BREAKING: I just dealt Biden another massive defeat in fed court. He tried to throw out immigration law, saying DHS didn’t have to detain criminal illegals. The court now says he must. I will always hold the line with the Dems and the rule of law. https://t.co/EfHXWBidAB
— Attorney General Ken Paxton (@KenPaxtonTX) June 10, 2022
Mayorkas admitted last month that over 1.2 million and potentially as many as 1.4 million illegal immigrants have crossed the border into the United States since President Biden took office.
Nearly a million had been released into the country.
Alejandro Mayorkas admits that the DHS has released at least 836,000 illegal immigrants into the U.S. since January 21. pic.twitter.com/mH6onsSZhV
— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) May 2, 2022
Also last month, a federal court dealt the administration another blow when it blocked the lifting of Title 42, a health measure first implemented under Trump that allowed for deporting of illegal immigrants based on COVID pandemic concerns.
Local officials – Democrats and Republicans alike – had begged Biden not to end Title 42, which experts said will make the border crisis even worse.
Instead, Biden is appealing the decision.
For a guy who recently claimed he doesn’t want to emulate Trump’s alleged “abuse of the constitution and the constitutional authority,” he sure does get struck down by courts that have found he has repeatedly disregarded constitutional limits an awful lot.
Whether it is the vaccine mandate for businesses, eviction moratoriums, or this new ruling on limiting arrests and deportations of illegal immigrants, the true abuser of the Constitution is currently in the White House.
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