Texas Sues Over Biden Scrapping Trump’s Remain-in-Mexico Rule

(Bloomberg) -- The Biden administration’s suspension of a 2019 program requiring U.S.-bound migrants to remain in Mexico during their immigration proceedings violated federal law by failing to weigh alternative plans or consider the impact on states, Texas and Missouri said in a lawsuit.

The Department of Homeland Security’s January halting of former president Donald Trump’s initiative to handle an influx of migrants at the border undermined efforts to “curb the criminal and humanitarian crisis,” Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and his Missouri counterpart, Eric Schmitt, said in a statement Tuesday announcing the litigation.

The Migrant Protection Protocols were put in place by the Trump administration to “address the migration crisis by diminishing incentives for illegal immigration, weakening cartels and human smugglers, and enabling DHS to better focus its resources on legitimate asylum claims,” the states said in the complaint, filed in federal court in Amarillo, Texas.

The Republican-led states claim human traffickers and smugglers are taking advantage of the “lapse” in border enforcement. They allege the Biden administration’s halting of the program pending a review by the Department of Homeland Security violated the Administrative Procedure Act because it was an “arbitrary and capricious” agency action.

The Department of Homeland Security didn’t immediately respond to an email seeking comment on the lawsuit.

Across the country, Republican governors and state attorneys general are suing to block President Joe Biden’s policy plans, rewriting a legal strategy Democrats used against Trump.

Read More: GOP-Led States Oppose ‘Just About Everything’ From Biden

The case is Texas v. Biden, 21-cv-00067, U.S. District Court, Northern District of Texas (Amarillo).

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