Injunction against Biden’s Non-Enforcement Goes to Sixth Circuit

May 25, 2022

IRLI shows appellate court that refusing to enforce the law is not an option

WASHINGTON—Today, the Immigration Reform Law Institute (IRLI) filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals urging that court to affirm an Ohio federal district court’s grant of a preliminary injunction, sought by Arizona, Montana, and Ohio, against the Biden administration policy of detaining and removing far fewer criminal aliens than had the previous administration.

In its brief, IRLI shows that the language Congress used when it directed that criminal aliens be detained and removed from the country is mandatory, leaving no discretion to the executive to exempt and release the great majority of these aliens, as the administration has done.

As IRLI explains, it is Congress that makes the laws, and the executive that is supposed to carry them out—not make its own laws opposed to those of Congress.

“There is a good reason the law says so clearly that aliens who turn out to be criminals should be removed,” said Dale L. Wilcox, executive director and general counsel of IRLI. “Many of them Biden has let go are dangerous, and Americans’ safety is very much at stake. We applaud the court below for reading the law the only way it can be read, and hope the Sixth Circuit affirms that judgment.”

The case is Arizona v. Biden, No. 22-3272  (Sixth Circuit).