Federal Judge Drew Tipton of the Texas Southern District Court, who was appointed by former President Donald Trump, issued a ruling Friday striking down the Biden administration's immigration enforcement guidelines, NPR and CNN report.
In September, Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas directed Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to arrest only those undocumented immigrants who crossed the border recently or who posed a threat to public safety or national security, claiming that being in the country illegally "should not alone be the basis" for arrest or removal.
In his ruling on the lawsuit brought by Texas and Louisiana, Tipton wrote that although "the Executive Branch has case-by-case discretion to abandon immigration enforcement as to a particular individual," the administration's policy "binds … officials in a generalized, prospective manner — all in contravention of Congress's detention mandate."
Federal immigration law requires that undocumented immigrants who commit crimes be taken into ICE custody after they've been released.