A Texas judge has struck down President Joe Biden’s enforcement orders for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency, commonly known as “sanctuary country” orders, that released into the United States countless criminal illegal aliens from local, state, and federal custody.
In a ruling on Thursday, Judge Drew Tipton issued a preliminary nationwide injunction sought by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) and Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry (R) that prevents the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) from implementing the orders that have kept many criminal illegal aliens in the U.S. since Biden took office.
In February, the orders instructed ICE agents not to arrest and deport illegal aliens who had not been identified as terrorists, gang members, or were not recently convicted of an aggravated felony in the U.S.
As a result, illegal aliens charged and convicted of child sex crimes, armed robbery, drunk driving, burglary, cocaine trafficking, grand theft auto, heroin trafficking, credit card fraud, money laundering, and other crimes have been released into American communities rather than being turned over to ICE agents for arrest and deportation.
Tipton’s ruling, though, blocks DHS from continuing to implement the orders:
Although this case involves many issues of administrative and immigration law, its core concerns whether the Executive Branch may implement a policy that directly conflicts with laws that Congress enacted. The answer is no. In the end, through all their detailed explanations of the Executive’s seemingly unending discretion, the Government substantially undervalues the People’s grant of “legislative Powers” to Congress. [Emphasis added]
Because the States have demonstrated that there is a substantial likelihood that portions of the Memoranda direct Executive Branch officials to act in a way that is contrary to Sections 1226(c) and 1231(a)(2), those sections of the Memoranda cannot stand and are hereby enjoined. Additionally, the Court enjoins the sections of the Memoranda described above because the States have demonstrated a substantial likelihood that the policy concerning detention of certain aliens set forth in the Memoranda is arbitrary and capricious under the [Administrative Procedure Act] APA and the Memoranda fail to comply with the APA’s notice and comment requirement. [Emphasis added]
…
This Preliminary Injunction is granted on a nationwide basis and prohibits enforcement and implementation in every place the Government has jurisdiction to enforce and implement the January 20 and February 18 Memoranda. [Emphasis added]
In addition, Tipton orders the Biden administration to provide a monthly report on the number of illegal aliens who were released into the U.S. the previous month after ICE agents did not detain them.
The court asks for each illegal aliens’ name, the crime they are charged and were detained for, as well as the reason that they were not detained by ICE agents and the ICE official who made the decision not to detain them.
Tipton orders the nationwide preliminary injunction to remain in effect pending a final resolution in the case “or until a further Order from this Court, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, or the United States Supreme Court.”
The case is Texas v. U.S., No. 6:21-cv-00016 in United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.
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