The Florida Attorney General’s Office reinforced this Wednesday a lawsuit filed against the federal government for, in its opinion, releasing undocumented immigrants detained on the southeastern border of the country “without even starting the legal process for their expulsion.”
“The (Joe) Biden Administration has not only consciously refused to enforce immigration laws but has also developed an operation to secretly resettle illegal aliens in communities in Florida and the rest of the United States,” state Governor Ron DeSantis said in a statement.
The amendment to the lawsuit comes after media reports reported that dozens of adult immigrants were transferred to a Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) station in Brownsville, Texas, where they were apparently released.
A Fox News report indicates that these immigrants left the facilities of ICE in several taxis heading to a nearby airport, from where they planned to fly to cities within the United States, some to Florida.
The amendment is to a lawsuit filed in September 2021 against the immigration policy known as “catch and release”, which allows undocumented immigrants who were detained after crossing the border to be released.
The lawsuit goes against the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and subordinate agencies, such as the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Service (ICE), as well as the Secretary of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas.
So Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody stated that Florida spends about 100 millions of dollars for “imprisoning undocumented immigrants”, in addition to other amounts added and that are related to social services.
According to federal law, indicated the Florida authorities s, arriving immigrants, including asylum seekers, must be detained while the immigration courts determine whether there is a valid basis to enter the United States.
DeSantis now criticized that the government is carrying out this with secrecy and “without any coordination with the states” or background checks on immigrants.
The border with Mexico continues to live months with a large arrival of immigrants and last December more than 178 were registered,000 “encounters” between immigration officials and undocumented persons or asylum seekers.
Of these, more than 78,000 were expeditiously expelled thanks to the application of the emergency medical measure due to the pandemic of COVID-19 named Title 42.
But for the Floridian authorities it seems that they are not enough, especially because the images taken by Fox News showed adult and non-female immigrants and family units that, according to the Title 42, do have options to be admitted into the country, while the rest should be expelled immediately.