Public Health Immigration Laws: Texas Goes Head-to-Head with the Feds
Office of the Texas Attorney General
AUSTIN (News Release) – This week, Attorney General Ken Paxton filed Texas’s reply brief demanding that the Biden Administration enforce public health immigration law at the border. A Federal District Court in Fort Worth heard oral argument on Tuesday. The State of Texas is requesting the Court impose an injunction on the federal government to stop it from continuing its unlawful activities.
Under President Trump, the federal government utilized a body of laws known as Title 42 to rapidly expel illegal aliens at the border in order to preserve Americans’ and Texans’ public health in the midst of the Covid pandemic. Yet President Biden abandoned significant portions of Title 42 (and other related federal immigration laws), resulting in an explosion of illegal immigration at the border and an exponential increase in the costs Texans must bear in public resources. The Biden Administration persists in its conduct despite the prevalence of new surges and strains in Mexico and other countries—just as Texas is beginning to fully reopen.
“Title 42—when it was faithfully enforced—was extraordinarily successful in expelling illegal aliens, protecting Americans’ public health, and preserving our limited public resources,” said Attorney General Paxton. “The Biden Administration has unlawfully abandoned its legal duties, resulting in massive increase in illegal immigration at the border, and in turn forced Texas to bear additional massive costs and harms. The Court must intervene to stop this insanity.”
Attorney General Paxton has sued the Biden Administration on behalf of the State of Texas 11 times since Inauguration Day on January 20, 2021.
Five of those 11 lawsuits are immigration-related. This Title 42-Covid suit is one of the five.
A copy of Texas’s reply brief—drafted alongside America First Legal and the Immigration Reform Law Institute—can be found here.
