A federal judge in Texas on Friday granted a Republican-led request to remove Biden administration rules that restrict who federal immigration agents should seek to arrest and deport from the United States, declaring the directive illegal.
U.S. District Court Judge Drew Tipton said Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas did not have the authority to issue a September 2021 note directing immigration officials to focus on arresting immigrants believed to be threatening public safety or national security, and migrants who have recently crossed the U.S. border illegally.
Tipton, appointed to former President Donald Trump, has agreed to cancel a note from Mallorca that has been challenged by Republican officials in Texas and Louisiana. But he suspended his decision for seven days to give the Biden administration time to appeal.
Friday’s ruling was the latest failure in federal court for the Biden administration’s immigration program, which faces more than a dozen lawsuits from Texas and other Republican-controlled states.
Federal judges appointed by Mr Trump have blocked the Biden administration from ending a policy that requires asylum seekers to await a court hearing in Mexico and a pandemic-era measure that allows border guards to expel migrants quickly. Tipton himself suspended the 100-day moratorium on deportations in the first month of Mr Biden’s post, as well as an earlier directive restricting immigration arrests.
The Ministry of Justice, which represents the federal government in litigation, did not comment on Friday’s court order. A spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which monitors immigration deportation and customs officials (ICE), said officials “are currently evaluating the court order and considering the next steps.”
In a note from September 2021, Mallorca said that the status of an unauthorized immigrant should not be the only reason for his arrest, arguing that federal officials should focus their limited resources on detaining and deporting those who are wanted. considers that they threaten national security, public safety or border security.
“In exercising our judgment, we are guided by the fact that the majority of undocumented non-citizen citizens who have been removed have donated to members of our communities for years,” Mayorcas wrote, highlighting the work of key workers, teachers and immigrant agricultural workers. .
Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas testifies before the House of Representatives Committee on Appropriations Committee on Homeland Security during a hearing on Wednesday, 27 April 2022. José Luis Magana / AP
But Tipton described Mallorca’s remark as too restrictive for ICE agents, saying it effectively protects some immigrants with criminal records from arrest. He found that the implementation of the directive violates laws requiring the detention of immigrants convicted of certain crimes or with final deportation orders.
“It is also true that the executive branch can prioritize its resources. But it must do so within the limits set by Congress,” Tipton wrote in his 96-page opinion. “Whatever the external limits of his powers, the executive has no power to change the law.
The Mallorca note instructed ICE agents to weigh “aggravating factors” such as the severity of crimes, harm to victims and previous sentences, and “mitigating factors” such as the age of the immigrant, the time the US lived and military service. when deciding whether to make an arrest.
Tipton said the analysis limited the discretion of ICE agents and violated mandatory detention laws.
“Sometimes agents and employees on the ground are forced to make quick decisions when confronted with people, and this scheme ties their hands and changes the standard by which they decide who to detain and when,” Tipton wrote.
Tipton also ruled that Mallorca had adopted the memorandum in an “arbitrary and capricious” manner, contrary to federal administrative law. The Biden administration’s rules, Tipton said, had to be implemented after allowing the public to comment on the policy changes.
Texas and Louisiana, Tipton said, have been financially damaged by the Mallorca directive, citing costs related to the detention or provision of social services, such as health care, to immigrants not detained by the federal government.
The memorandum, issued by Mallorca in September, is one of several policies the Biden administration has introduced to review ICE’s mission and narrow down groups of immigrants subject to arrest and deportation.
Under Mr. Biden, ICE stopped detaining families with children, ended large-scale arrests in the workplace, protected most U.S. military veterans and servicemen from deportation, and generally banned agents from arresting certain groups, including pregnant or lactating women and victims. serious crimes.
In fiscal 2021, ICE carried out 59,011 deportations, a record low. While the sharp decline in deportations may be due in part to the Biden administration’s priorities for arrests, it was also partly fueled by an emergency border measure known as Title 42, which allows for the rapid expulsion of migrants.
Since March 2020, when the Trump administration referred to the Public Health Authority in Title 42, U.S. officials at the southern border have expelled migrants nearly two million times without processing their asylum applications, according to DHS statistics.
Because these expulsions were made under public health law, unlike traditional deportation procedures adopted by Congress, they do not count in the number of ICE deportations.
More Camilo Montoya-Galves
Camilo Montoya-Galves is an immigration reporter for CBS News. Based in Washington, it reflects immigration and policy.
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