Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich has filed suit against President Joe Biden’s administration for its Department of Homeland Security (DHS) memo that seeks to halt deportations of illegal aliens for at least 100 days.
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 came 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.
In response, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit against the administration and a federal judge has temporarily blocked the order from taking effect.
Now, Brnovich has filed a similar lawsuit against Biden’s DHS for the deportation halt, arguing that the policy violates federal immigration and the state of Arizona’s agreement with the agency. Brnovich’s office said that within three days of the policy taking effect, DHS released 27 illegal aliens from their custody in the Phoenix, Arizona region.
“Law enforcement officials have told the AGO that many of the individuals released were not properly tested for COVID-19, nor did DHS try to coordinate with local health or police agencies,” Brnovich’s office wrote in a news release.
“It is unconscionable for DHS to release potentially dangerous detainees into our state, especially when no efforts are made to coordinate with applicable courts and probation departments,” Brnovich said. “I am asking the court to enforce the law.”
Brnovich’s office writes that the policy will further strain local Arizona hospitals and social services intended for residents.
“These new executive actions have restarted the mass flow of migrants to our border and will soon have a significant impact on the resources of local governments,” Yuma County Sheriff Leon Wilmot said in a statement. It continued:
Under this moratorium on deportations, hundreds, and soon to be thousands, of migrants will potentially be turned loose in Arizona as well as other Border communities without any means of testing for communicable diseases including COVID-19. Systems in many smaller communities are already operating near full capacity and potentially overwhelming them runs contrary to the COVID-19 mitigation plan we were promised.
The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court in Arizona. The case number is 2:21-cv-00186-DLR.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com.