Mayorkas Takes His Legal Farce to the Supreme Court
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) wants the U.S. Supreme Court to allow it to continue setting “enforcement priorities” on immigration. In reality, the administration is determined to flout congressional intent and undermine the rule of law.
Through a series of executive fiats, DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas has drastically reduced detention of illegal aliens. U.S. District Judge Drew Tipton blocked Mayorkas’ orders last month. The Fifth Circuit Court declined to reverse that ruling, while the Sixth Circuit allowed the secretary’s policy directives to remain in place, setting up a potential showdown at the Supreme Court.
Mayorkas claims that being present in this country without authorization “should not alone be the basis” for enforcement actions. But U.S. immigration law is clear: Illegal aliens shall – not may – be subject to arrest, detention and removal.
DHS’s rationales for ignoring the law are nonsensical. The agency claims it doesn’t have the resources to do its job, though Homeland Security Investigations is deploying teams to nab shoplifters in Hawaii. Mayorkas & Co. say they lack detention space, yet a 2,000-bed facility in California is nearly empty, while others have 30 percent vacancy rates.
On Mayorkas’ say-so, parole authority is promiscuously used to release illegal aliens en masse, including criminals and those in asylum proceedings. No matter that Congress limited parole to case-by-case considerations deemed to be a public benefit. Not surprisingly, many paroled aliens have simply disappeared.
Andrew Arthur of the Center for Immigration Studies reported last week that this administration has released 1,050,000 aliens into the country while removing only 5,000 via Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP). Aliens not considered a Mayorkas “priority” are effectively exempt from any enforcement.
(While the Supreme Court, in a recent 5-4 decision, allowed MPP to lapse, the ruling did not address larger questions concerning executive branch authority over immigration policy.)
As long as Biden & Co. persist in contorting and subverting immigration law, they guarantee continued record illegal border crossings. And they will continue to face lawsuits challenging their non-performance.
If the Executive Branch can simply nullify laws by refusing to carry them out under the rubric of setting priorities, then the whole separation of powers doctrine is essentially thrown out the window. America is paying a steep price for this reckless disregard.