Federal Judge Grants Texas a Temporary Restraining Order Against Biden Deportation Ban

President Joe Biden issued executive orders and memoranda his first week in office. One of them was a memorandum (January 20 Memorandum) to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) that suspended the deportation of illegal aliens with final orders of removal for 100 days.

The governor of Texas and the state’s attorney general sued the Biden administration over the halt on deportations, arguing that the deportation halt violated federal law and agreements DHS signed with Texas and other states that requires DHS to provide notice and allow time for a review.

The court agreed and found that Texas satisfied the requirements for the temporary restraining order and that the federal government failed to follow proper administrative procedures.

The court stated in its ruling (PDF) that the January 20 Memorandum violates federal law that grants the Attorney General’s authority to remove “the alien from the United States within a period of 100 days” when there’s an order to do so. Texas also demonstrated that “a substantial threat of irreparable injury if the injunction is not issued” against the Biden administration’s pause of removal of illegal aliens with a final removal order. An excerpt:

First, Texas demonstrates that it pays millions of dollars annually to provide social services and uncompensated healthcare expenses and other state-provided benefits to illegal aliens such as the Emergency Medicaid program, the Family Violence Program, and the Texas Children’s Health Insurance Program. (Dkt. No. 2 at 16–17). Additionally, Texas has presented evidence that it would incur increased educational costs. (Dkt. No. 2 at 17)

The court also contended that the nationwide injunctions “of executive action are a topic of fierce and ongoing debate in both the courts and the legal academy.” The January 20 Memorandum “not only fails to consider potential policies more limited in scope and time, but it also fails to provide any concrete, reasonable justification for a
100-day pause on deportations.”

A trial court will now hear the case to decide whether to issue a permanent injunction against the January 20 Memorandum.

Photo credit: By Jonathan McIntosh – Own work, CC BY 2.5, Wikimedia Commons