A federal judge has dealt a major blow to the Biden administration‘s relaxed border policies.
Florida Judge T. Kent Wetherell ruled the Biden administration‘s use of policies to mass release migrants into the U.S. interior is unlawful and must be corrected immediately.
According to Fox News, Judge Wetherell stated in his opinion the Biden administration had “effectively turned the Southwest Border into a meaningless line in the sand and little more than a speedbump for aliens flooding into the country.”
Additionally, Wetherell ruled that the policies implemented by the Biden administration, including catch and release, had contributed to the degradation of the border as a means to keep illegal migrants out.
“Today’s ruling affirms what we have known all along, President Biden is responsible for the border crisis and his unlawful immigration policies make this country less safe. A federal judge is NOW ordering Biden to follow the law, and his administration should immediately begin securing the border to protect the American people,” Republican Florida Attorney General Moody said in a statement following the ruling.
The Biden administration had been increasingly relying on parole to release migrants quickly into the interior to reduce overcrowding at the border as it deals with historic migrant numbers at the border.
Biden has never been to the border. He went to El Paso, which is 800 miles from the Rio Grande Valley.
He brazenly lied and claimed that people weren’t crossing.
The City of El Paso cleared illegal aliens from the streets before the president arrived.
Pure political theater. pic.twitter.com/S4U1Tmvupg— Senator Ted Cruz (@SenTedCruz) March 8, 2023
However, the statute says agents should use parole sparingly on a “case-by-case basis for urgent humanitarian reasons or significant public benefit.”
Florida’s Attorney General Ashley Moody contended that President Biden is intentionally violating statutory mandates that migrants be detained. The administration had argued that there is no “non-detention policy.”
“The evidence establishes that Defendants have effectively turned the Southwest Border into a meaningless line in the sand and little more than a speedbump for aliens flooding into the country by prioritizing “alternatives to detention” over actual detention and by releasing more than a million aliens into the country—on “parole” or pursuant to the exercise of “prosecutorial discretion” under a wholly inapplicable statute—without even initiating removal proceedings,” the judge said.
The ruling stays the order for seven days to allow for an appeal, but could potentially have massive implications if there is a surge in migrants when Title 42 ends.
Biden’s critics have accused the president of intentionally ignoring issues stemming from his border policies, forcing governors to address the federal government’s missteps.
On Tuesday, New York City Mayor Eric Adams announced a shift in policy to resettle asylum-seekers away from the Big Apple and into other cities across the country.
“There are cities in the state an across the country that … want to play the role,” the mayor said. “They realize that this is a national problem.”
According to POLITICO, Mayor Adams was reluctant to share which specific cities plan to host more migrants.
“Please don’t ask me which cities because I don’t need you running to the cities and stopping them,” he told reporters at the announcement. “I know you enjoy pitting cities against cities, so we are not giving you that information.”
Under the Biden administration, border officials have faced more than 1.7 million migrant encounters in FY 2021 and over 2.3 million in FY 2022.