Texas Sues Biden for Ignoring COVID-19 Rules at Southern Border
Texas has filed a fresh federal lawsuit against President Joe Biden, arguing his policies violate federal law and are encouraging an influx of illegal aliens infected with the CCP virus, the pathogen that causes COVID-19, which jeopardizes public health and the burgeoning economic recovery.
The new legal proceeding, the seventh filed by Texas against the Biden administration since the president’s inauguration, seeks a return to Trump-era border policies.
“President Biden’s outright disregard of the public health crisis in Texas by welcoming and encouraging mass gatherings of illegal aliens is hypocritical and dangerous,” Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican, said in a statement.
“This reckless policy change stifles the reopening of the Texas economy at a time when businesses need it the most and when our children need to get back to in-person learning as soon as possible. Law and order must be immediately upheld and enforced to ensure the safety of our communities and the reopening of the strongest economy of the country.”
Paxton said earlier this year that illegal aliens cost Texas taxpayers an estimated $855 million each year.
The legal complaint filed April 22 in U.S. District Court in Fort Worth names Biden, the departments of Health and Human Services (HHS) and Homeland Security (DHS), U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) as defendants.
The complaint details how Biden’s policies—each a sharp departure from previous Trump policies—have allegedly led to a surge of COVID 19-infected illegal aliens into the United States and Texas, endangering public health on a national basis while straining the state’s resources.
Each one of the actions that has contributed to the dramatic border surge, such as the policy of releasing unaccompanied children and families after putting them in crowded detention settings, where the novel coronavirus can spread, is unlawful, unjustified, and in violation of the U.S. Constitution and procedural norms, the lawsuit states.
The Biden administration has “abandoned the preexisting protections against the introduction into Texas and the United States of aliens infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus … during a pandemic.” In the process, the administration has also violated three key federal statutes –the Immigration and Nationality Act, the Public Health Service Act of 1944, and the Administrative Procedure Act, according to the legal complaint.
Less than six months ago, the CDC issued a rule aimed at preventing aliens potentially infected with the CCP virus from entering the U.S. through land borders. In practice, the rule resulted in DHS “rapidly expelling illegal aliens from the United States shortly after their unlawful entries.”
The new administration has “since hastily and unlawfully departed from their own rules for large numbers of illegal aliens and created an undeniable crisis on our southern border.”
“Instead of using the CDC’s authority to prevent the introduction of covered aliens into the United States during a pandemic, Defendants have chosen to take courses of action that have resulted in the release of tens of thousands of aliens into Texas and the United States. Absent this Court’s intervention, such releases will continue for the foreseeable future,” the lawsuit reads.
The term “covered aliens,” the complaint explains, generally includes aliens likely to end up in a congregate, or shared, care setting after violating immigration laws.
“These dangerous and inexplicable actions demonstrate that Biden, though he bills himself as the COVID president, cares nothing about COVID if it gets in the way of his administration’s project of releasing more and more illegal aliens into the country,” said Dale L. Wilcox, executive director and general counsel of the Immigration Reform Law Institute (IRLI), which represents Texas as outside counsel in the case.
“The effects of this calculated irresponsibility will be devastating. It is vital that we stop the administration here, and also block its other lawless policies that threaten the safety and well-being of Americans.”
Also serving as outside counsel to Texas in the case is the America First Legal Foundation, a new nonprofit founded by former top-ranking Trump administration officials. The foundation’s president is Stephen Miller, former Senior Advisor to President Trump.
The U.S. Department of Justice didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment from The Epoch Times.
Three days after Biden was sworn in, Texas sued to block Biden’s 100-day moratorium on most deportations. U.S. District Judge Drew Tipton granted a preliminary injunction against the policy, which he found was “arbitrary and capricious” because it violated administrative laws and procedures.
The second lawsuit was filed March 17, when Texas and 20 other states sued Biden for revoking the 2019 presidential permit for the Keystone XL pipeline unilaterally and without the consent of Congress. The lawsuit is currently pending in U.S. District Court in Galveston, Texas.
On March 24, Texas and 12 other states sued Biden over his executive order halting new oil and natural gas leases on federal property, which they say will harm the country by driving up energy prices. The states say the order violates federal law and that Biden failed to follow the proper procedure for modifying government regulations. The lawsuit is pending in U.S. District Court in Lake Charles, Louisiana.
The fourth lawsuit was filed March 26, when Texas and 13 other states filed an emergency application with the Supreme Court asking to be allowed to defend the so-called public charge rule in court proceedings after the Biden administration decided not to defend it in court. The public charge rule, which the Trump administration revived, requires prospective immigrants to be able to support themselves financially. The Supreme Court stayed a lower court’s injunction against the rule in January 2020, allowing it to be enforced, pending disposition of the government’s appeal in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit. The application is pending in the high court.
On April 6, Texas and Louisiana sued the Biden administration over what Paxton’s office described as its “refusal to take custody of criminal illegal aliens, including dangerous felons and drug manufacturers, as required by federal law.” The lawsuit claims Biden implemented unlawful directives that allow dangerous illegal aliens already convicted of felony offenses to freely roam the nation. The legal action is currently pending in U.S. District Court in Victoria, Texas.
The sixth lawsuit was filed April 13, when Texas and Missouri sued Biden in an effort to reinstate a Trump-era rule that restricts would-be immigrants’ ability to remain in the U.S. if they traveled through Mexico from another country. Paxton has said that by ending Trump’s Migrant Protection Protocols, which were launched in early 2019, Biden prompted an ongoing wave of prospective immigrants, severely straining federal immigration resources. The lawsuit is pending in U.S. District Court in Amarillo, Texas.
