Joe Biden's "catch and release" open-borders have let five million illegals into the country, dumping their care into the hands of states and cities at a cost of billions.
On Wednesday, though, a federal judge in Florida threw the rationale for it out, vacating Biden's executive order to not detain illegal border crossers en masse as a matter of policy, noting that the border had become "a line in the sand" for the U.S., and a "speedbump" for illegal aliens.
The case was brought by none other than Florida, home of Gov. Ron DeSantis, and 19 other states, all of which objected to the imposed cost from the Biden failure to enforce the law.
Breitbart News called it "a big win" for DeSantis.
According to The Hill:
“The evidence establishes that Defendants have effectively turned the Southwest Border into a meaningless line in the sand and little more than a speedbump for aliens flooding into the country by prioritizing ‘alternatives to detention’ over actual detention and by releasing more than a million aliens into the country — on ‘parole’ or pursuant to the exercise of ‘prosecutorial discretion’ under a wholly inapplicable statute — without even initiating removal proceedings,” Wetherell ruled, according to court documents.
In 2021, when the Biden administration implemented the policy — which released many migrants into the country as they awaited immigration proceedings — officials cited a need to relieve overcrowding in detention facilities amid the coronavirus pandemic.
Federal law gives the government discretion to temporarily “parole” migrants, but Wetherell said the policy violated statutory requirements to consider those decisions only on a case-by-case basis.
The administration’s policy also ran afoul of the law’s requirements for the parole to be “for urgent humanitarian reasons or significant public benefit” and for migrants to be returned to custody once the purposes of parole have been served, the judge ruled.
The legal decision is an impressive one, suggesting a very fine legal mind at work, with one slam-dunk refutation after another of the Biden argument that it's somehow entitled to release every illegal border crosser bearing the word "asylum" into the interior of country on "parole" instead of detain them, as the law requires, and let the states and cities pick up the tab.
Florida Judge T. Kent Wetherell II ruled that the policy violated Congress's right to set immigration quotas as well as the specific details of the Immigration and Nationality Act, in addition to ignoring the tools Congress gave to the White House to use if it didn't have enough detention space available.
What it didn't give an inch on was the White House's claimed right to make up the law as it went along. Much of the ruling can be read at Legal Insurrection here, and the full ruling can be read here.
“The evidence establishes that Defendants have effectively turned the Southwest Border into a meaningless line in the sand and little more than a speedbump for aliens flooding into the country by prioritizing ‘alternatives to detention’ over actual detention and by releasing more than a million aliens into the country — on ‘parole’ or pursuant to the exercise of ‘prosecutorial discretion’ under a wholly inapplicable statute — without even initiating removal proceedings,” Wetherell ruled, according to court documents.
Breitbart News reported that the Bidenites had anticipated that the ruling would not go their way. The judge gave the White House seven days to appeal the ruling before it went into effect and thus far, they haven't said if they will. If the ruling is heeded by the Bidenites, which is a big 'if,' the border surge should end.
The intellect projected in this ruling suggests that this judge is Scalia-grade Supreme Court material. He will likely draw a lot of rage from the left, particularly since he was appointed to the post by President Trump, but there is no reason to think he is a partisan -- his dad, after all, was a prominent Florida Democrat. He was just a very fine legal mind.
The plaintiffs, led by DeSantis's Florida, should not be discounted, either. A well-framed argument was what it took to shut down the border surge, proving to the judge that the states had standing in this border surge and that it was not happening in a vaccuum. This apparently is what it took, and the fact that DeSantis was behind it is bound to infuriate the Bidenites. For two years it had been an intractible problem, but Ron DeSantis broke through it.
Once again, good news comes Ron DeSantis, he always brings us good news. Let's remember that about him when 2024 comes round.