For the first time ever, local sheriffs have teamed up with federal ICE officers to sue a president and his Department of Homeland Security.
Thursday, at the federal district courthouse in Galveston, Texas, a lawsuit was filed by a group of Texas sheriffs and counties, along with an association of ICE officers, against President Biden and the leadership of the Department of Homeland Security. This extraordinary action was driven by the extraordinary consequences of Biden’s immigration policies.
The sheriffs and ICE officers point out that the Biden Administration has willfully violated three different federal statutes that require certain illegal aliens to be detained and removed from the United States. On February 18, 2021, Defendant Alejandro Mayorkas issued a policy memorandum that effectively prevents ICE officers from detaining or removing illegal aliens even though federal law mandates that those aliens must be detained and removed.
The sheriffs and ICE officers are simply asking the federal district court to require the Biden Administration to follow the law and to allow the ICE officers to do their job.
Their legal complaint points out that ICE officers have requested permission to take custody of numerous dangerous illegal aliens but have been denied permission by their superiors under the Biden Administration policy. The crimes that those illegal aliens have committed include, among others: rape of a child, aggravated sexual assault on a child, aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, larceny, burglary, domestic violence, carrying a prohibited weapon, possession of drugs, resisting a law enforcement officer, and driving under the influence. These are not minor crimes. And these are not harmless aliens.
In addition, illegal aliens are now going straight from prison to the general public. In the past, illegal aliens who had been convicted of crimes in the United States and completed their prison sentence would have been deported. Now the Biden Administration is refusing to deport the vast majority of such criminal aliens. Instead, they are being released onto the streets.
In effect, the Administration’s actions have forced ICE to stand down and have reduced deportations to a third of what they were a year ago. That has in turn fueled the crisis at the border, encouraging more illegal immigration. It has also created an unbearable burden for local law enforcement in Texas.
The sheriffs and ICE officers are seeking a nationwide injunction to allow them to follow the law, so that they can once again cooperate in detaining and removing criminal illegal aliens. It’s a shocking state of affairs when it now takes a lawsuit for law enforcement officers to be permitted to follow the law.
Kris W. Kobach served as the elected Secretary of State of Kansas during 2011-19. He currently serves as general counsel for the Alliance for Free Citizens and is lead counsel for the plaintiff sheriffs and ICE officers. His website is kriskobach.com.
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