Biden Admin Released 2,700 Illegal Immigrants Into US Despite Court Order Blocking Parole Program

A Texas National Guard soldier watches as an illegal immigrant walks into a makeshift camp in El Paso, Texas, on May 11, 2023. John Moore/Getty Images

Biden administration officials proceeded to release more than 2,700 illegal immigrants into the United States through a special parole policy mere hours after a federal court ordered a pause to the practice.

The state of Florida sued the Biden administration last week in a challenge to the administration’s parole program, which allowed border officials to release illegal immigrants into the United States without a set court date. The rule is known as the “Policy on Parole with Conditions in Limited Circumstances Prior to the Issuance of a Charging Document,“ or ”Parole with Conditions.”

Judge T. Kent Wetherell II of Florida’s Northern federal court district issued a temporary restraining order (TRO) on Thursday, blocking the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) from releasing people through the “Parole with Conditions” policy. Wetherell issued the order just hours before Title 42 ended, suspending a pandemic-era policy that allowed border officials to rapidly turn away and expel migrants for reasons pertaining to public health.

Despite Wetherell’s TRO, however, DHS officials proceeded to release 2,743 illegal immigrants into the United States on Friday without court dates through the “Parole with Conditions” policy.

On Monday, Wetherell demanded (pdf) that DHS officials answer for the parole decisions, and explain why the organization shouldn’t be held in contempt for releasing parolees despite the TRO. The DHS officials responded that 2,576 illegal immigrants had already been “fully processed,” but simply had not yet been released before the TRO went into effect. The DHS officials said they decided to release the illegal immigrants under the assumption that the TRO only applied to parolees who had not been “fully processed” prior to this order.

The DHS officials admitted to releasing another 167 illegal immigrants whose status in the “Parole with Conditions” program was unclear.

Judge Declines Contempt Ruling

Wetherell declined to find DHS officials in contempt for releasing the 2,743 illegal immigrants after the TRO went into effect. Still, the judge questioned how the DHS officials could have concluded that they were allowed to release any additional immigrants through the “Parole with Conditions” policy after the TRO.

“It was the Court’s expectation and intention that no aliens would be released under the authority of the Parole with Conditions policy after the TRO went into effect because, in the Court’s mind, the policy is still being ‘implemented’ when the alien is released from custody, irrespective of when the alien’s processing was ‘fully completed,’” Wetherell wrote in a Tuesday order (pdf). “Indeed, the entire point of the policy is to release aliens from custody more quickly, and it is hard to understand how an alien can be both ‘paroled’ and in custody at the same time.”

Wetherell said that in an ideal situation, the DHS officials “would have sought clarification from the Court before making a unilateral decision to release aliens under the authority of the Parole with Conditions policy after the TRO took effect.” Nevertheless, the judge concluded the TRO he issued had not been clear enough.

“Because the Court is required to construe any uncertainties in the order in the light most favorable [to the] DHS, the Court cannot say that DHS willfully disregarded the authority of the Court by releasing the 2,576 aliens when it did,” he added.

Wetherell deferred on the issue of the 167 additional parolees who were released even though their parole processing may not have been fully complete before the TRO went into effect. He ordered the DHS to provide additional details about these parolees by Friday.

Wetherell’s TRO was originally set to last for 14 days, but on Tuesday he converted the order into a preliminary injunction. The decision could extend the block on the “Parole with Conditions” policy until the court reaches a final judgment on the policy.

DHS officials filed an appeal on Tuesday, seeking to overturn the preliminary injunction.

From NTD News