FIRST ON FOX: Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is taking aim at the “brutal reality” of President Biden’s immigration agenda, as migrants are flocking to the border ahead of the end of the Title 42 public health order — with the Republican AG hinting at more lawsuits on the matter.
“The brutal reality of Biden’s immigration agenda should shock the conscience of every American,” Paxton said in a statement. “His policies allow monstrous gang members, terrorists, human traffickers, drug dealers, and violent criminals into our country and demonstrate that the President is willing to sacrifice American lives for his open-borders agenda. Furthermore, our public services, including overburdened schools, hospitals, and law enforcement, are saddled by the federal government with unsustainable costs as billions of dollars are spent supporting illegal aliens residing in Texas.”
Paxton, who has been a constant foe of the administration’s immigration policies with at least 15 lawsuits related to the border and immigration, spoke ahead of the expiration of Title 42 on Thursday.
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The public health order was put into place at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020 and allows for the rapid expulsion of migrants at the southern border for public health reasons. In March, nearly half of all migrant encounters ended in a Title 42 expulsion. The order will end on May 11 along with the COVID-19 national emergency.
The Biden administration has been urging migrants not to make the journey north on the belief that they are more likely to be admitted into the U.S. It has emphasized its stiffening of Title 8 penalties when the order drops, and has sent troops and other personnel to the border.
However, migrants have not appeared to be listening, and authorities are already seeing overwhelming numbers at the border, with migrants flooding into areas like El Paso and Brownsville in Paxton’s state.
The administration has said it is meeting a hemisphere-wide challenge as best it can, that it has been restoring legal asylum pathways while also urging Republicans in Congress to provide funding and pass an immigration reform package.
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But Republicans have rejected that narrative, and Paxton accused Biden of having worked “flagrantly against the interests of our nation and the safety of our citizens.”
Paxton faults Biden for having failed to implement the Trump-era Remain-in-Mexico policy – which kept migrants in Mexico for their asylum hearings — and similar border policies.
“Instead, he has introduced and continued destructive policies with the full expectation that the chaos will worsen. This includes his unlawful ‘parole’ program that pre-approves huge numbers of aliens to enter the country, his ‘prioritization’ guidance that directed ICE to shield criminal aliens from deportation, his new overseas processing facilities to fast-track so-called ‘asylum seekers’ to fly directly into the United States, his collaboration with NGOs to guide illegal immigrants to the border, his provision of taxpayer-funded airplane tickets and other services to aliens while our own citizens struggle financially, and his complicity in the trafficking of minors forced to toil as indentured servants in dangerous jobs,” he said.
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“Then he appeared to hint at future legal action against the administration.
“While no amount of suffering appears to dissuade Biden from his open-borders agenda, his routine violations of the United States Constitution open him up to accountability through the courts. I will continue to use every resource available to end his unconstitutional assault on our borders and sovereignty,” he said.
President Biden was asked directly this week about how the administration will handle the end of Title 42 , and he noted the collaboration with Mexico and other regional partners.
“We’ve gotten overwhelming cooperation from Mexico. We also are in the process of setting up offices in Colombia and other places where you can or someone seeking asylum can go first. So it remains to be seen.”
“It’s going to be chaotic for a while,” he added.
