Attorney General Paxton filed a brief in the United States Supreme Court to prevent the Biden Administration from letting thousands of deportable criminal aliens walk freely in communities across America.  

The initial lawsuit, led by the States of Texas and Louisiana, was filed after Biden’s Department of Homeland Security (DHS) issued “Guidelines for the Enforcement of Civil Immigration Law” (Final Memorandum), which declared their intention to ignore federal law that requires officials to detain various criminal aliens and aliens with final orders of removal.  

Congress had initially required these categories of dangerous criminal aliens to be detained “against a backdrop of wholesale failure by the INS, DHS’s predecessor organization, to deal with increasing rates of criminal activity by aliens.” A federal district court previously ruled for the States and found the Biden Administration’s Final Memorandum to be in violation of the law, arbitrary and capricious, and procedurally invalid.  

“It’s hard to imagine a more dangerous and radical policy than the Biden Administration’s decision to allow violent criminals to roam freely in our communities,” said Attorney General Paxton. “In order to protect Texas communities and uphold the rule of law, I’m urging the U.S. Supreme Court to uphold the district court’s judgment and require DHS to detain criminal illegal aliens.”  

The brief highlights the district court’s previous ruling on the lawlessness of the Biden Administration’s Final Memorandum: “Congress has mandated that the Executive must detain specific criminal aliens . . . . When Congress requires the Executive to act, the Executive lacks the authority to disregard that instruction. This Court should affirm the district court’s judgment that the Final Memorandum harms States, is substantively and procedurally unlawful, and must be vacated.”  

To read the full brief, click here.  

Oral argument before the Supreme Court is scheduled for late November 2022.