Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton successfully blocked President Joe Biden‘s administration from implementing a 100-day moratorium on deportations, Just the News reported.
“This is a big win for Texas and the nation,” Paxton said in response. “It sends a clear message to the Biden Administration that they will not be able to violate federal immigration law and endanger the lives of Texans.”
The Department of Homeland Security said in a statement that it “does not intend to extend or reinstate a policy requiring a pause on the execution of final orders of removal for any noncitizens.”
The federal judge for the Southern District of Texas dismissed the case because the 100-day policy expired.
The Biden administration’s deportation freeze never dictated immigration policy because a federal judge immediately issued an injunction to block its implementation after Paxton sued.
Although DHS could not legally halt deportations, Biden’s appointees have undermined immigration enforcement with their open-borders approach.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement in April deported the fewest number of illegal aliens in the agency’s history. For the first time in ICE’s history, deportations fell below 3,000—to 2,962.
Former presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump both deported hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens per year, Pew Research reported.
As Biden encourages illegal immigration and instructs federal immigration officials to pull back, illegal border crossings hit a 20-year high last month.
“This Administration’s failed policies have only exacerbated the crisis at our southern border, and further exhausted the regular duties of our law enforcement officers,” Paxton said.
DHS restricted its criteria for deportation by excluding illegal aliens who have committed assault, fraud, money laundering, and drunk driving.
“The priority for the enforcement of immigration laws will be on those who are posing a national security threat, of course, a public safety threat, and new arrivals,” White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said in February.
“Nobody is saying that DUIs or assaults are acceptable behavior, and those arrested for such activities should be tried and sentenced as appropriate by local law enforcement, but we’re talking about prioritization of who should be deported from the country.”
