TEXAS – Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton on Tuesday once again filed a lawsuit against the Biden administration, claiming its policies “have illegally & constitutionally made it impossible to arrest & detain dangerous illegal aliens.”

What You Need To Know

  • Texas AG Ken Paxton, along with Louisiana, again sues Biden administration

  • Lawsuit claims Biden policy leading to potentially dangers migrants being released into Texas

  • Lawsuit additionally claims policy is costing Texas taxpayers a great deal

The lawsuit claims the administration’s new policy when it comes to deporting migrants who have been convicted of crimes violates the law. The suit, filed jointly with the state of Louisiana, asks that the Department of Homeland Security be compelled to take those migrants into custody before they are released by state and local authorities.

“President Biden’s outright refusal to enforce the law is exacerbating an unprecedented border crisis. By failing to take custody of criminal aliens and giving no explanation for this reckless policy change, the Biden Administration is demonstrating a blatant disregard for Texans’ and Americans’ safety,” Paxton wrote. “Law and order must be immediately upheld and enforced to ensure the safety of our communities. Dangerous and violent illegal aliens must be removed from our communities as required by federal law.”

Specifically, the lawsuit concerns detainer requests sent to local law enforcement by Homeland Security. Those requests ask that law enforcement detain a person for up to 48 hours in order that ICE can take him or her into custody and begin deportation proceedings.

Federal law doesn’t stipulate that those detainers be honored but Texas law does.

Paxton says ICE, based on guidance by the Biden administration, recently rescinded several retainer requests, leaving the Texas Department of Criminal Justice to either release people from detention or continue to detain them at the expense of taxpayers.

According to a February report by the Associated Press, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement was prepared to release three men convicted of sex offenses against children, Texas officials said, in an apparent misapplication by authorities of enforcement directives from President Joe Biden’s administration.

The three were not released after discussions in recent weeks between the state prison system and immigration authorities. But the process of keeping them in custody raised alarms that ICE was declining to detain convicts contrary to immigration law, officials said.

Civil-rights groups have criticized the use of detainers as violating due process rights and noted that ICE has at times wrongly placed detainers on U.S. citizens. Texas’ Republican-led Legislature passed a law in 2017 requiring local and state law enforcement to comply with detainer requests.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

-

Facebook Twitter