Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has filed a lawsuit against President Joe Biden’s administration for what he says is an “unlawful” executive order that halts deportations of illegal aliens.
Hours after taking office on January 20, Biden signed an executive order that halts deportations of most illegal aliens for at least 100 days. The order comes as illegal immigration has spiked in recent months and a migrant caravan heads to the United States-Mexico border in the hopes of taking advantage of the Biden administration’s lax enforcement policies.
On Friday, Paxton filed a complaint and motion for a temporary restraining order in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas in a request that immediately ends Biden’s halt on deportations.
Paxton, in a statement, said Biden’s order “violates the U.S. Constitution, federal immigration and administrative law, and a contractual agreement” between Texas and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
“In one of its first of dozens of steps that harm Texas and the nation as a whole, the Biden administration directed DHS to violate federal immigration law and breach an agreement to consult and cooperate with Texas on that law,” Paxton wrote:
Our state defends the largest section of the southern border in the nation. Failure to properly enforce the law will directly and immediately endanger our citizens and law enforcement personnel.
DHS itself has previously acknowledged that such a freeze on deportations will cause concrete injuries to Texas. I am confident that these unlawful and perilous actions cannot stand. The rule of law and security of our citizens must prevail.
Biden additionally signed executive orders to loosen interior immigration enforcement, end border wall construction, eliminate the anti-fraud “Remain in Mexico” policy, and reinstate immigration from nations considered exporters of terrorism.
Deportations for illegal aliens is a huge cost savings for American taxpayers, research has found. The taxpayer cost of the roughly 11 million to 22 million illegal aliens living across the U.S. totals nearly $750 billion over the course of a lifetime while each deportation costs just $10,900. This indicates that taxpayers would save about $622 billion over a lifetime if every illegal alien was deported.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.