A federal judge has blocked the Biden administration from imposing limitations on Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrests, detentions, and removals.
District Judge Michael Newman of the Southern District of Ohio ruled Tuesday in favor of the Republican attorneys general of Arizona, Montana, and Ohio, issuing a preliminary injunction prohibiting President Joe Biden from imposing new guidelines for laws regarding consequences for illegal immigration.
“The States sue because they believe DHS skirted Congress’s immigration enforcement mandates when it issued a policy that prioritizes certain high-risk noncitizens for apprehension and removal,” Newman wrote in his ruling. “DHS contends that seemingly mandatory statutes must be read flexibly to permit efficient law enforcement.”
“At bottom, that is what this dispute is about: can the Executive displace clear congressional command in the name of resource allocation and enforcement goals? Here, the answer is no,” Newman wrote.
Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich, Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen, and Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost sued the Biden administration in November 2021 over the policy revision, which they said “dramatically ties the hands of immigration officers, halting nearly all deportations.”
That month, the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, issued a permanent guidance to limit whom ICE could arrest and thus remove from the country. The guidance established that ICE officers had to obtain permission to arrest illegal immigrants who had not been convicted of an aggravated felony, were not affiliated with a gang or terrorist network, or had illegally entered the U.S. before November 2020.
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“This is a great victory for the rule of law, border security, and public safety across the country. President Biden’s open border policies make it easier for the Mexican cartels to smuggle drugs into our country, which is part of the reason we’re seeing such an increase in violent crime,” Knudsen said in a statement to the Washington Examiner Tuesday afternoon. I hope the Biden administration will follow the court order and start following the law when it comes to deportations, particularly for those illegal aliens who have prior criminal convictions.”
Under Trump, ICE officers were told to pursue any illegal immigrant, including those arrested after driving under the influence or charged with other less violent crimes. Since February 2021, ICE officers have had to go through an internal approval process by management before going into communities and arresting specific immigrants if they do not meet the three criteria.
Knudsen said in a statement from November that the Biden administration policy would “further incentivize illegal immigration and worsen the ongoing border crisis.”
ICE data for fiscal year 2021, which ended in September 2021, revealed that arrests and deportations of illegal immigrants dropped more than 75% compared to the record-high numbers seen during the Obama administration. ICE removed 59,011 noncitizens in 2021, mostly under the Biden administration’s more rigid criteria. In 2011, nearly 400,000 noncitizens were deported — meaning the numbers were down 85% under Biden.
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Just 74,082 noncitizens were arrested last year, down from 300,000 or more during the early years under President Barack Obama, according to an analysis by the Migration Policy Institute. ICE arrests and removals dropped during the Trump administration from the highs seen under President Obama.
