Move is latest in escalating battle between the governor and the administration over border issues
By Dianne Solis
The U.S. Department of Justice filed suit Friday afternoon to stop an order by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott to restrict the transportation of migrants who had previously been detained by the federal immigration authorities.
The suit, filed in El Paso in the U.S. District Court for the Western District, is the latest in an escalating battle between Abbott and the administration of President Joe Biden. The Texas attorney general has filed five suits against the Biden administration — all related to immigration.
The suit alleges that Abbott’s executive order violates the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution, which says that federal laws take precedence over state laws. It also argues that the order causes injury to individuals whom the U.S. is charged to protect, “jeopardizing the health and safety of noncitizens in federal custody, risking the safety of federal law enforcement personnel and their families, and exacerbating the spread of COVID-19 in our communities.”
The Justice Department is seeking an emergency motion for a temporary restraining order. Thursday, Attorney General Merrick Garland called Abbott’s order “both dangerous and unlawful.”
Abbott, a Republican running for re-election, has accused the Biden administration of exposing Texas to COVID-19 and “creating a public health disaster in Texas.”
Abbott’s executive order issued on Wednesday took effect immediately. It ordered the state Department of Public Safety to detain vehicles that were transporting migrants following their detention by U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
The order stipulated that vehicles be rerouted to a point of origin or a port of entry if a violation is confirmed.
The measure was immediately criticized by attorneys and immigration nonprofits as unconstitutional and likely to create further havoc. Rising numbers of immigrants and asylum-seekers have been apprehended in recent months, particularly families and unaccompanied minors. The increase continued in the last two months despite the summer heat, which traditionally brings a decline in migration.
Abbott quickly retorted Friday afternoon that the Biden administration has sat on “the sidelines” on immigration matters. Abbott said he had the legal authority under “long-established emergency response laws to control the movement of people to better contain the spread of a disaster, such as those known to have COVID-19.”
Abbott charged, in a written statement, that the Biden administration has “created a constitutional crisis between the federal government and the State of Texas.”
The federal suit noted that federal agencies rely on contractors to provide transportation of “noncitizens,” the term the federal government now uses for immigrants and asylum-seekers. In the Rio Grande Valley, the busiest for immigrant apprehensions, Customs and Border Protection has used contractors to transport about 120,000 in this fiscal year to date, the suit said.
“Because CBP stations are only designed for short-term holding, it is essential that CBP be able to transfer noncitizens out of CBP custody in a timely manner and CBP relies on contractors for these transfers,” the suit reads.
Noncitizens are transferred to another federal immigration agency, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, or in the case of unaccompanied migrant children to Health and Human Services. Other nongovernmental agencies provide COVID-19 testing and safe placement and quarantine, the suit said. They also transport noncitizens to board commercial buses to travel to destinations within the U.S., the suit said.
The suit addresses particular concerns about those minors. It says “the executive order’s restrictions on transportation will result in immediate backups of unaccompanied children in both CBP” and facilities of the Office of Refugee Resettlement, an agency within Health and Human Services..
Thursday was another high day for apprehensions of unaccompanied minors with nearly 2,300 migrant minors in the custody of the Border Patrol. CBP came under intense scrutiny when more than 5,000 minors were kept in its custody earlier this year because of a spike in arrivals. About 95,000 unaccompanied migrant minors have been apprehended this fiscal year, through June, by CBP. That figure exceeds the record year of 2019, when 81,000 unaccompanied migrant minors were apprehended, according to federal government data.
That led to the creation of pop-up detention centers in cities such as Dallas. The federal government labeled them “emergency influx” sites. Those sites were not state licensed.
Earlier this week, Sister Norma Pimentel, who runs a respite center in McAllen for newly released migrants, asked that Abbott reconsider his executive order due to the “terrible outcomes” that could happen. Her shelter is expanding to a capacity of 1,500 and migrants are being placed in other locations around the Rio Grande Valley, often with Pimentel’s coordination. Those that come to the respite center, which is run by Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley, are tested for COVID-19 at tents in downtown McAllen.
