U.S. judge blocks Biden’s limits on immigrant arrests, deportation

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August (Reuters) – A federal judge on Thursday prevented President Joe Biden’s administration from enforcing its guidelines restricting who can be arrested and deported by U.S. immigration officers and sided with two Republican-led states – Texas and Louisiana – who had contested this.

Corpus Christi, Texas, District Judge Drew Tipton ruled that February’s Immigration and Customs (ICE) guidelines violated federal law that requires the government to “detain” individuals who commit or commit certain crimes otherwise considered entitled to deportation.

“Simply put, the government has directed federal officials that ‘detaining’ certain foreigners means ‘detaining’ when that clearly means they must be detained,” wrote Tipton.

ICE did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Biden, a Democrat, has tried to take back some of the tough immigration policies of his Republican predecessor Donald Trump.

The Biden Administration guidelines, presented in February, the month after he took office, instruct agents to focus on immigrants identified as threats to national and public security and those entering the United States after November 1, 2020 entered.

According to the policy, agents must obtain pre-approval from a senior manager if they want to arrest someone who does not fall into one of these categories.

Trump had allowed ICE agents to track down low-level criminals and non-criminals, as well as those with long ties to the United States.

The Texas and Louisiana Republican attorneys general said in a lawsuit in April that dozens of convicted criminals had been released into their communities on orders from the Biden government, which weighed on local law enforcement and welfare programs.

The judge’s judgment prevented ICE from enforcing the guidelines pending the outcome of the lawsuit.

Tipton, a trustee for Trump, blocked the Biden administration’s 100-day deportation moratorium in January. In a decision last week, Tipton also ordered the government to reintroduce a Trump-era policy of sending asylum seekers to Mexico to await trial.

Reporting by Daniel Wiessner in New York; Adaptation by Will Dunham

Daniel Wiessner

Dan Wiessner (@danwiessner) reports on labor and labor law as well as immigration law, including litigation and policy making. He can be reached at daniel.wiessner@thomsonreuters.com.