Dear Mr. Pekoske:
Yesterday you ordered a blanket halt on nearly all deportations of illegal aliens. This complete abdication of the Department of Homeland Security’s (“DHS”) obligation to enforce federal immigration law is unlawful and will seriously and irreparably harm the State of Texas and its citizens.
Specifically, your memorandum directed DHS to impose “an immediate pause on removals of any noncitizen with a final order of removal [subject to limited exceptions] for 100 days to go into effect as soon as practical and no later than January 22, 2021.”1 Should such a directive be legal or left unchallenged, DHS could attempt to renew that directive indefinitely or issue a similar directive for an even longer period of time. That would allow the Biden Administration to grant blanket amnesty to the vast majority of the illegal aliens in this country with the stroke of a pen and without congressional approval.
Border states like Texas pay a particularly high price when the federal government fails to faithfully execute our country’s immigration laws. Your attempted halt on almost all deportations would increase the cost to Texas caused by illegal immigration. DHS itself has previously acknowledged that such a “pause on . . . removals” will cause “concrete injuries to Texas.” ….
Read the rest at: texasattorneygeneral.org
