A federal judge in Florida on Wednesday struck down the Biden administration’s use of parole to mass release migrants into the U.S. interior, finding the practice unlawful and accusing the administration of turning the border into a “meaningless line in the sand.”
Judge T. Kent Wetherell ruled in response to a lawsuit from the state of Florida, which alleged the administration’s mass release of tens of thousands of migrants via humanitarian parole into Alternatives to Detention — known as “Parole + ATD” — is unlawful.
In a scathing opinion Wednesday, Wetherell stated the Biden administration had “effectively turned the Southwest Border into a meaningless line in the sand and little more than a speedbump for aliens flooding into the country.”
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Additionally, Wetherell ruled that the policies implemented by the Biden administration, including catch and release, had contributed to the degradation of the border as a means to keep illegal migrants out.
“Today’s ruling affirms what we have known all along, President Biden is responsible for the border crisis and his unlawful immigration policies make this country less safe. A federal judge is NOW ordering Biden to follow the law, and his administration should immediately begin securing the border to protect the American people,” Republican Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody said in a statement following the ruling.
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The administration had been increasingly using parole — which the statute says is supposed to be used on a “case-by-case basis for urgent humanitarian reasons or significant public benefit” — to release migrants quickly into the interior to reduce overcrowding at the border as it deals with historic migrant numbers at the border. Florida contended that the government is violating statutory mandates that migrants be detained. The administration had argued that there is no “non-detention policy” and that it is using its prosecutorial discretion.
“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,” the judge said, siding with Florida.
“There is nothing inherently inhumane or cruel about detaining aliens pending completion of their immigration proceedings,” he said.
Jeremy Redfern, deputy press secretary for Gov. Ron DeSantis, said the governor is “acting to protect Floridians from Biden’s border crisis.”
“Today, Judge Wetherell vindicated the governor’s actions and ruled that the Biden administration is breaking federal immigration law by failing to fulfill the duties of his office and secure the nation’s border,” he said in a statement, before noting the judge’s conclusion that the administration had turned the border into a “meaningless line in the sand.”
“Thankfully, Governor DeSantis steps up to lead when national leaders fail,” Redfern said.
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The judge also sided with the Sunshine State in its argument that it had standing to challenge the policy as more than 100,000 migrants have been released into the state, and it has borne significant costs in providing public services to them.
The Biden administration ended family detention of migrants in 2021, although it is reportedly considering reintroducing the practice when Title 42 ends in May. Title 42, which allows for the rapid expulsion of migrants at the southern border due to COVID-19, will end in May with the ending of the COVID-19 public health emergency.
The administration, facing more than 1.7 million migrant encounters in FY 2021 and over 2.3 million in FY 2022, had looked for ways to more quickly release migrants into the U.S. interior, as it also ended Trump-era policies like the Migrant Protection Protocols, which kept migrants in Mexico for their immigration hearings.
The administration typically released migrants with Notices to Appear that set a court date. However, the process takes much longer than the Parole + ATD, which tells migrants to check in with ICE when they get to their destination. The migrants are also enrolled into some form of ATD surveillance, typically a check-in app on an electronic device, or in some cases an ankle bracelet.
The ruling stays the order for seven days to allow for an appeal, but could potentially have massive implications if there is a surge in migrants when Title 42 ends — as administration officials have previously predicted.
The administration is also facing a looming lawsuit from GOP states over its humanitarian parole that flies in up to 30,000 migrants from Venezuela, Nicaragua, Haiti and Cuba each month. Those states have said the program breaches the statutory limits on the use of parole.
Meanwhile, it could soon face a challenge over its recently announced asylum rule. That rule, which would automatically make migrants ineligible for asylum if they have entered the U.S. illegally and have also failed to claim asylum in a previous country through which they passed, has sparked outrage from immigration activists, some of whom have threatened to take legal action if the rule is finalized.