President Biden suffered a setback last week when a district judge issued a temporary injunction to stop him from redirecting $1.4B that Congress allocated for a barrier on the U.S.-Mexico border.
U.S. District Judge Drew Tipton, a Trump appointee, temporarily halted the funds in question - money Congress allocated in 2020 and 2021 - to help stop the flow of people illegally crossing the southern border. Judge Tipton wrote that the Biden administration's "spending decisions run afoul" of administrative law. He ruled against the Biden administration's argument that it can decide how to spend that money.
Included in the judge's decision was a requirement that Texas must prove that the funds aren't being spent on additional border walls. The barriers are meant to result in "fewer illegal aliens entering the country." On that issue, the judge wrote that “Texas has done so."
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton slammed Biden for not spending the money that is allocated for border wall construction.
“Biden acted completely improperly by refusing to spend the money that Congress appropriated for border wall construction, and even attempting to redirect those funds,” state Attorney General Ken Paxton said in a statement. “His actions demonstrate his desperation for open borders at any cost, but Texas has prevailed.”
This legal battle began in 2021 when then-Texas Land Commissioner George P. Bush and Texas Attorney General Paxton sued the Biden administration. Biden directed a stop to the construction of a border wall as he entered office. Their cases were combined. Originally, a state district judge tossed the case. In June 2023, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the lower court's decision. That action revived the lawsuit against the Biden administration.
It's been four years of continued legal battles between Governor Greg Abbott and AG Paxton and the Biden administration. Abbott continues to fight against Biden's lack of border security enforcement and his immigration policies. Abbott and Paxton fight against open-border policies. They claim that Biden has incentivized illegal immigration. With all the services available for illegal aliens and a lack of consequences for the lawlessness of illegally entering the United States since Biden's first day in office, it is hard to argue otherwise.
Joe Biden stopped the successful policies and agreements from Trump's administration and signed executive orders and actions that reversed the handling of border security. Thus, the Biden border crisis. One major contrast is in Biden's decision to end the Remain in Mexico policy. Now when Border Patrol agents apprehend illegal border crossers, they are processed and allowed to move into the interior of the United States.
In Biden's America, every state is a border state.
Biden admitted last year that he tried to play fast and loose with the funds allocated by Congress for a border wall. But he is required by law to use the money provided by Congress to continue border wall construction. That appropriation goes back to 2019 when Trump was in office.
“I tried to get them to reappropriate it, to redirect that money,” he previously said. “They didn’t. They wouldn’t. And in the meantime, there’s nothing under the law other than they have to use the money for what it was appropriated. I can’t stop that.”
It's a shame that the money is still in limbo when the border states need all the help they can get to stop the invasion along the border. Nothing good is coming from the open southern border. Joe Biden doesn't care.
The Biden administration has seven days to appeal the order.
If Trump wins the presidential election in November, he promises to bring back the Remain in Mexico policy so that illegal aliens stay in Mexico while they wait for their asylum claims to be processed. Trump also said DHS will deport illegal aliens during his second term in office.
In the meantime, Governor Abbott will continue to do the job that Joe Biden refuses to do.
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