Candidate Joe Biden had promised a raft of immigration-related executive orders (EOs) famously beginning on “Day One” of his administration. One of those orders had to do with declaring a 100-day moratorium on deportations, an order which he did indeed issue, resulting an email sent to ICE officers in Texas.
Unfortunately for Biden’s best-laid plans, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton immediately filed suit in Federal District Court in Texas’s Southern District, contesting the moratorium and saying such a move would require at least 180 days’ notice:
On its first day in office, the Biden Administration cast aside congressionally enacted immigration laws and suspended the removal of illegal aliens whose removal is compelled by those very laws. In doing so, it ignored basic constitutional principles and violated its written pledge to work cooperatively with the State of Texas to address shared immigration enforcement concerns. This unlawful reversal will cause Texas immediate and irreparable harm if it is not enjoined. If left unchallenged, DHS could re-assert this suspension power for a longer period or even indefinitely, effectively granting a blanket amnesty to illegal aliens that Congress has refused to pass time and time again. The Constitution, controlling statutes, and prior Executive pledges prevent a seismic change to this country’s immigration laws merely by memorandum.
Federal Judge Drew Tipton in Victoria agreed and promptly blocked the moratorium for two weeks, handing the new president his first setback from the courts. On February 9, when the initial suspension was to expire, Judge Tipton extended it for an additional two weeks, until February 23, citing a number of reasons, declaring “an extension . . . is warranted because Defendants do not appear to have been harmed by the grant of the present temporary restraining order.”
Judge Tipton, as he himself says, “may ultimately be persuaded by the Defendants’ arguments,” but for now, he has delivered a one-two punch to the EO-happy Biden.
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