The Biden Administration’s lawlessness, especially concerning illegal immigration, knows no bounds. Last week, the Department of Homeland Security promulgated a “new” policy that allows the government to “parole” illegal immigrants into the United States without even issuing a notice that they are required to appear before an immigration judge. Rather than give them a court date to appear before they are released, as was previously done (which is itself a violation of federal law), the new policy simply asks that illegal immigrants provide a mailing address and a promise to appear at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility within 60 days to ask for a date in an immigration court.
That’s absurd, and a federal judge put a stop to the new policy before it went into effect.
Yet the Biden Administration decided to continue allowing illegal immigrants to be released into the country via “parole.” That is a direct violation of the federal court order. Thankfully, at least one federal judge – T. Kent Wetherell II, of the northern district of Florida – is willing to stand up to hold Biden and his cronies to account.
The Biden Administration’s refusal to follow the law has significant real-world consequences.
New York City officials estimate the city will spend more than $4 billion dealing with the illegal immigrants who have flooded the city as a result of Biden’s illegal immigration crisis.
And New York’s experience is multiplied all over the country, as local, state, and federal government officials make decisions to deploy taxpayer resources to support the needs of illegal immigrants instead of American citizens.
That’s wrong. And what’s really infuriating about it is that it is the direct and predictable result of the Biden Administration’s refusal to follow the law.
Enter Judge Wetherell, who, in an earlier case filed by the state of Florida against the Biden Administration, demonstrated his willingness to stand firmly for the rule of law against the Biden Administration’s refusal to do so. In that case, Wetherell ruled that the Biden Administration had to stop its “Parole+ATD” – that is, “Parole plus Alternatives to Detention” – because it violated the law.
Last week, in a new case brought by the state of Florida against the Biden Administration, Judge Wetherell issued an order denying the Border Patrol the ability to release illegal immigrants into the country via “parole,” saying the “new” Biden Administration policy was “materially indistinguishable” from the “Parole+ATD”policy he had rejected two months earlier.
“Like the Parole+ATD policy, the Parole with Conditions policy is a ‘processing pathway’ designed to relieve overcrowding at Border Patrol facilities and release large numbers of aliens into the country on ‘parole’ without even initiating immigration proceedings,” Judge Wetherell wrote in Monday’s decision. “The Parole with Conditions policy operates in precisely the same manner as the Parole+ATD policy – by allowing immigration officials to ‘parole’ arriving aliens into the country on the condition that they schedule an appointment at Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility (or check-in online) within a specified period to be placed in an immigration proceeding.”
Wetherell’s ruling last week put the new policy on hold for two weeks, to give the Biden Administration time to file an appeal. Department of Justice lawyers asked for a two-week stay of the judge’s order, which he promptly denied.
Then came Friday, and – according to a report in The Washington Times – the Biden Administration continued to allow illegal immigrants into the country, “paroling” some 2,500 of them even after the judge’s order blocking the policy had gone into effect.
Judge Wetherell was not happy. Even as he acknowledged he had “a healthy degree of skepticism” about the news report, he showed his mood: “However,” he wrote, “the Court takes allegations of noncompliance with its orders very seriously, irrespective of the source of the allegations.” Wetherell ordered the Biden Administration’s lawyers to explain its continued use of the new policy he had blocked.
Here’s the problem: The Biden Administration simply does not wish to follow the law. It doesn’t make a difference how it cloaks the policy – whether one calls it “Parole+ATD” or “Parole with Conditions,” as Judge Wetherell says, it’s essentially the same policy, and it’s a policy that violates the law. And the result is the catastrophe we see on the southern border … and everywhere illegal immigrants get to in the interior of the country.
The solution to the problem is not rocket science: To end the lawlessness of the Biden Administration, we must end the Biden Administration and replace it with an administration committed to following and enforcing the law. It’s just that simple.
Jenny Beth Martin is Hororary Chairman of Tea Party Patriots Action.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.
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