President Joe Biden’s Department of Homeland Security has, in effect, halted the vast majority of arrests, detentions, and deportations of illegal aliens, including those convicted of crimes, ostensibly as a means to prioritize limited resources toward dealing with the worst such offenders.
Several states led by Arizona sued the Biden administration over this new DHS policy that bypassed the normal rulemaking procedures, and a federal district judge just sided with the states and issued a nationwide injunction against the policy in question, Breitbart reported.
New DHS policy effectively prohibits most deportations
The DHS policy at the heart of the lawsuit was issued in September 2021 and it, for all intents and purposes, established a sort of “sanctuary country” rule by severely curtailing the enforcement abilities of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents by limiting it to only illegal migrants that posed undeniable threats to national security or public safety.
Arizona, joined by Montana and Ohio, filed suit and Ohio District Judge Michael Newman — appointed by Biden’s predecessor, former President Donald Trump — sided with those states in determining that the Sept. 2021 order from Biden’s DHS was likely unlawful.
In a 79-page ruling, Judge Newman laid out the relevant federal immigration laws pertaining to the mandatory arrest, detention, and deportation of all criminal illegal aliens in the U.S. in comparison to the purported “discretion” in such decisions included in the DHS order.
Ultimately, he decided that a nationwide preliminary injunction was necessary for several different reasons.
Existing laws and procedures violated; nationwide injunction warranted
Judge Newman ruled that the states were likely to succeed on the merits of their arguments, which included that the DHS order was at odds with existing federal laws and that, per the Administrative Procedures Act, the DHS order was implemented in an “arbitrary and caprious” manner.
In that, DHS failed to take into account a number of pertinent factors, such as the additional costs and harms incurred by the states due to its nonenforcement policy. Likewise, the administration failed to go through the normal “notice and comment” procedure prior to imposing the new rule.
Given all of that, and with due consideration to the abuse of nationwide injunctions by district courts in recent years, Judge Newman nevertheless felt it necessary to preliminarily bar Biden’s DHS nationwide from further enforcement or implementation of the new policy until the case is fully decided or an appeals court says otherwise.
Arizona AG cheers ruling
“This is a tremendous victory for the rule of law and the safety of our communities,” Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich (R) said in a press release Tuesday.
“Since assuming office, the Biden administration has undermined our immigration laws and our law enforcement agencies, while empowering dangerous cartels and criminals on both sides of the border,” he added. “I’m grateful for this ruling and for the partnership of Ohio and Montana as we work to reverse this catastrophic lawlessness.”
Thus far, it doesn’t appear that Biden’s administration has issued a reaction to this court’s ruling and whether or not it intends to abide by the judge’s order or seek to overturn it on appeal.
