Biden administration files emergency court order to allow migrant releases on parole
Ryan King
Video Embed
The Biden administration filed an emergency motion Friday to halt a court order that blocked the administration from releasing immigrants from the border on parole to prevent overcrowding.
A judge on Thursday imposed a two-week restraining order on the administration from releasing illegal immigrants into the United States without notices for court hearings. Justice Department officials requested the District Court Northern District of Florida place a stay on the ruling.
DEBT CEILING DEADLINE RAISES EYEBROWS OVER BIDEN’S NEGOTIATION STRATEGY
“This Court’s vacatur and injunction irreparably harm the United States and the public by frustrating measures that are necessary to secure the border and protect the health and welfare of both migrants and Border Patrol Agents, in light of the significant increase in the number of noncitizens who have arrived,” DOJ lawyers wrote in an emergency motion to the district court.
Underlying the request is Title 42, a pandemic-era health order that expired on Thursday just before midnight. The policy allowed U.S. Border Patrol to expel migrants rapidly without asylum hearings.
Due to the fact that a larger number of migrants who cross the border pursue asylum, border officials have limited options on how to process them now that Title 42 is gone.
“That authority is limited. DHS can no longer expel noncitizens arriving from other countries to Mexico under Title 42 and lacks the resources to detain this record number of arrivals, or the staffing and facilities to safely process and issue charging documents to all these new arrivals in the normal course,” the filing added.
DOJ lawyers noted that if the court does not grant the stay, it will “seek emergency relief from the Eleventh Circuit” by Monday.
In issuing the restraining order Thursday, District Judge T. Kent Wetherell II concluded that Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody would likely prevail in her suit, alleging that the Biden administration policy was “materially identical” to another one that Wetherell struck down in March. The DOJ appears to be pursuing a stay on that order as well.
Wetherell backed some of Moody’s arguments and contended that the border “problem” was “largely one of [Biden’s] own making.” The White House blasted his order in response.
“On the ruling that you just laid out to me — so look, the way we see that, it’s sabotage, it’s pure and simple. That’s how that reads to us,” White House press secretary Jean-Pierre said in a briefing. “The claims that CBP is allowing or encouraging release of migrants is just categorically false.”
There have been reports of the Biden administration releasing migrants into the U.S. already. A Border Patrol memo this week indicated that certain migrants can be released into the U.S. on parole if there are “urgent humanitarian reasons or significant public benefit,” such as overcrowding.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
DOJ lawyers further underscored that the restraining order leaves border patrol with “inferior options.”
“[It] leaves DHS only inferior options in the event the number of migrants encountered over the coming days and weeks causes DHS to substantially exceed its detention capacity: for example, DHS could apprehend individuals and release them with notices to report (with no accompanying enforcement mechanism) or, in a worst-case scenario, decline to apprehend certain border-crossers altogether.”