As President Biden visits the crisis-stricken border for the first time in his presidency, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is speaking out against the legality of the President’s new immigration policy. Paxton tells Fox Digital, “We have checks and balances.
Each branch has its own power. The states have their own power. It’s his own law, his own rules. And he doesn’t run it through Congress.”
The situation at the border is dire, with CBP agents overwhelmed by the influx of migrants. Migrants are sleeping on the streets outside the Sacred Heart Catholic Church in El Paso and officials have even had to erect new processing centers and put barred wire along the Rio Grande to keep people out.
In response, President Biden announced that he will be extending Title 42, a COVID-era policy allowing officials to rapidly expel migrants. The Supreme Court will hear arguments about the policy’s legality on March 1st.
But Paxton asserts that the White House may face an uphill legal battle in implementing the program, saying, “If he’s doing this on his own without any type of statutory authority, then we’re going to we’re going to call a spade a spade, say, hey, Mr. President, again, just a reminder, you’re a president, you’re not a dictator, you’re not a king. You have to follow the rules, the laws just like everybody else.”
In addition to extending Title 42, President Biden also announced that he is offering a legal pathway for up to 30,000 migrants a month from Cuba, Nicaragua, Haiti, and Venezuela. However, migrants who cross into the U.S. illegally are exempt from the program.
This move has been met with criticism from Republican lawmakers and border communities, with President Biden stating, “Republicans haven’t been serious about this at all.
I wanted to make sure that I knew what the outcome, or at least the near outcome was on Title 42 before I went down. We don’t have that yet so I had to operate. I don’t like Title 42, but it’s the law now. I have to operate within it.”
The effects of the border crisis are far-reaching, with each migrant processed taking manpower away from CBP agents who are fighting drug cartels pushing the deadly drug fentanyl into the U.S. and destroying millions of American families in the process.
Former U.S. Border Patrol Chief Rodney Scott tells Fox & Friends, “That’s about an hour, a man hour minimum of processing. And that’s not about any type of transport or anything else. That’s just about an hour in front of a computer processing that individual that literally wipes out all the Border Patrol agents on the line.”
It’s clear that President Biden’s new immigration policy is causing controversy and may face legal challenges. It remains to be seen if the policy will provide any real solutions to the crisis at the border.