Florida Just Sued the Biden Administration, Alleging 'Illegal' Policies That Violate Federal Law
Demanding that the Biden administration follow the law, the state of Florida is suing the federal government over its immigration policies.
Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody filed the suit Tuesday, according to Fox News, which said it obtained a copy of the lawsuit targeting the Department of Homeland Security and the federal government as a whole.
The suit frames its effort as part of the work of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and other state officials to “uphold the rule of law despite the Biden administration’s decision to violate the law.”
DeSantis Looking for Ways Florida Can Help Deter Illegal Immigration https://t.co/ZsuLQfw4QK
— Dan Tegtmeyer ????FIRST (@realDTegtmeyer) September 23, 2021
The lawsuit’s bottom line is that President Joe Biden’s decision not to properly enforce immigration laws is hurting Florida, where many illegal immigrants end up.
“The Biden administration’s illegal border policies cause Florida harm,” the lawsuit said. “Many of the aliens illegally released by the Biden administration are arriving, or will arrive in Florida, harming the state’s quasi-sovereign interests and forcing it to incur millions of dollars in expenses.”
The lawsuit notes that U.S. law spells out how those entering the country illegally are to be treated and that the Biden administration does not follow the rules.
“The government is not free to ignore the clear commands of Congress,” the lawsuit said. “It has claimed that it lacks the resources and detention capacity to process the surge of migrants at the border.”
The federal government has actively worked to erode border security, the lawsuit said.
Biden’s administration “has actively sought to eliminate measures that increase its resources and detention capacity, such as the Migrant Protection Protocols (also known as the ‘wait in Mexico policy’), and has even asked Congress to reduce the number of immigration detention beds available to it,” the lawsuit said.
The lawsuit said that the Biden administration has willfully taken actions to encourage more illegal immigration.
“Further, it is the Biden administration’s misguided policies that have encouraged more migrants to make the dangerous journey to the United States. The government cannot, therefore, use a purported lack of resources as an excuse to ignore congressional mandates,” the lawsuit said.
I spoke on the House floor about Joe Biden’s dereliction of duty on our southern border. This crisis is out of control, and Democrats have no intention of fixing it.
We need to stop pretending that the left takes illegal immigration seriously.
THREAD pic.twitter.com/osKDCCvNNX
— Rep. Dan Crenshaw (@RepDanCrenshaw) September 23, 2021
Illegal immigrants who claim asylum and are allowed to remain in the U.S. while their cases are decided simply melt into the interior, the lawsuit said, and “the federal government may never find them.”
In attempting to quantify the damage the Biden administration has done, the lawsuit estimated that Florida spends more than $100 million a year in simply jailing illegal immigrants who commit crimes, in addition to human services and social services costs it incurs.
Florida wants the court to “hold unlawful and set aside” the current policy of “releasing arriving aliens subject to mandatory detention, of paroling aliens without engaging in case-by-case adjudication or abiding by the other limits on that authority; and of failing to serve charging documents or initiate removal proceedings against plainly inadmissible aliens who are being released into the interior of the United States.”
Florida is also seeking “permanent injunctive relief” that would end the administration’s multiple violations of existing immigration law.
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