In a classic example that serves to prove the old adage “what goes around comes around,” U.S. District Judge Drew Tipton, a Donald Trump appointee, on Tuesday issued a nationwide temporary restraining order against Joe Biden’s executive order halting illegal alien deportations over his first 100 days.
Immediately following Biden’s Inauguration Day EO, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton took the new administration to court, contending that Biden’s order would cause “concrete injures to Texas.” Paxton argued, “Border states like Texas pay a particularly high price when the federal government fails to faithfully execute our country’s immigration laws. [President Biden’s] attempted halt on almost all deportations would increase the cost to Texas caused by illegal immigration.”
During the Trump administration, the states of Texas, Arizona, Indiana, and Louisiana signed an agreement with the Department of Homeland Security giving them a 180-day period for consultation before the feds could take any action to “reduce, redirect, reprioritize, relax, or in any way modify immigration enforcement.”
Beyond being a bad idea and a constitutional dereliction, Biden’s EO is in violation of this agreement. Thus, Judge Tipton ruled that the order failed to follow the Administrative Procedures Act, stating, “Here, 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.”
Recall that the Administrative Procedures Act was the very same rule used by Democrats to successfully prevent Trump from following through on his EO to end DACA. Two can play this game.