Ian Patrick, FISM News
Government officials from several southern states have expressed frustration with the Biden administration’s lackluster border control and some are beginning to try and hold them accountable.
One such state is Florida, where the state’s Attorney General announced a lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security, Customs and Border Protection, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Citizenship and Immigration Services. DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas is also named as a defendant.
In the lawsuit, Florida AG Ashley Moody says the Biden administration “has released at least 225,000 illegal border crossers since taking office, including ‘[a]bout 50,000’ whom the government released without initiating immigration court proceedings as required by law.”
“This practice was apparently authorized by ‘[g]uidance sent to border patrol . . . from agency leadership,’ which has not been made public, and which appears to claim broad ‘prosecutorial discretion’ to ignore the requirements of the immigration laws,” the lawsuit added.
The document says that the current administration is seeking to undermine and eliminate laws put in place from President Trump’s tenure that “increase . . . resources and detention capacity” of the government. Further, it says that Biden’s policies “have encouraged more migrants to make the dangerous journey to the United States” and have caused harm to Florida.
The aforementioned policy refers to the “catch and release” method of border detention, which apprehends migrants illegally crossing the border and releases them into the U.S. with a future court appearance to decide their eligibility to remain in the country. But not all migrants show up to these hearings, disappearing into the U.S. instead.
With this in mind, the lawsuit shows that Florida bears the responsibility of dealing with all migrants. The lawsuit recognizes that some of the migrants intend to be legal U.S. citizens, “but others are gang members, drug traffickers, and other dangerous criminals.”
Six counts have been brought up against the administration in the lawsuit including excessive and illegal authority in overstepping the APA (Administrative Procedure Act) and the unlawful nature of Biden’s policy. It seeks to overturn the “catch and release” policy while affording Florida “costs and reasonable attorney’s fees.”
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis supported the lawsuit in a press conference saying it is wrong of the Biden administration to create the border crisis and not do anything about it.
It’s just wrong, and it’s wrong that they’re not providing us information. It’s wrong that they’re not following the law. And it’s wrong that they’re going to be imposing a lot of costs and a lot of burdens on state and local communities all throughout the United States.