A federal judge has blocked President Joe Biden’s Department of Homeland Security (DHS) from implementing a halt on deportations, a blow to the administration’s efforts to dismantle interior immigration enforcement.
Hours after taking office on January 20, Biden’s administration issued a memo that sought to halt most deportations of illegal aliens for at least 100 days. As a result, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit, requesting a preliminary injunction on the “unlawful” deportation halt.
On Wednesday, United States District Judge Drew B. Tipton granted the preliminary injunction which prevents the Biden administration from implementing the deportation halt until the U.S. Southern District of Texas District Court, the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, or the U.S. Supreme Court resolves the case.
Tipton’s ruling states:
Therefore, it is hereby ORDERED that:
Defendants and all their respective officers, agents, servants, employees, attorneys, and other persons who are in active concert or participation with them are hereby ENJOINED and RESTRAINED from enforcing and implementing the policies described in the January 20 Memorandum in Section C entitled “Immediate 100- Day Pause on Removals.” [Emphasis added]
This preliminary injunction is granted on a nationwide basis and prohibits enforcement and implementation of the policies described in the January 20 Memorandum in Section C entitled “Immediate 100-Day Pause on Removals” in every place Defendants have jurisdiction to enforce and implement the January 20 Memorandum. [Emphasis added]
This preliminary injunction shall remain in effect pending a final resolution of the merits of this 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. [Emphasis added]
Dale Wilcox with the Immigration Reform Law Insitute (IRLI) said Tipton’s blockage of the deportation halt “should hold up on appeal” and called Biden’s memo a “bizarre and sinister attempt to shutter our entire immigration law enforcement system.”
“What the administration can never explain, and has never explained, is how this disastrous directive, which would send a wave of criminal aliens out onto the streets of Texas and the whole country, is even a rational policy, let alone the product of reasoned decision-making, as the law requires,” Wilcox said.
Aside from the deportation halt, the Biden administration has issued DHS memos to prevent deportations for any illegal alien who is not a suspected or known terrorist, a known gang member, or a recently convicted aggravated felon.
The series of DHS enforcement guidelines require that before federal immigration agents are allowed to arrest an illegal alien charged with violent crimes, drunk driving, or other federal violations, they must first get approval from top officials at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency.
An analysis of the guidelines finds that they will likely prevent about 9-in-10 deportations for illegal aliens who would have otherwise been deported by ICE.
Deportations for illegal aliens are huge cost savings for American taxpayers, research has found. The taxpayer cost of the roughly 11 million to 22 million illegal aliens living across the U.S. totals nearly $750 billion over the course of a lifetime while each deportation costs just $10,900. This indicates that taxpayers would save about $622 billion over a lifetime if every illegal alien was deported.
The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas. The case number is 6:21-cv-00003.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.
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