SAN DIEGO (AP) – During the final weeks of the Trump administration, the Department of Homeland Security quietly signed agreements with at least four states that threaten to temporarily derail President Joe Biden’s efforts to undo his predecessor’s immigration policies.
The agreements state that Arizona, Indiana, Louisiana and Texas are entitled to a 180-day consultation period before the executive’s policy changes take effect. The Biden government rejects this argument, claiming that immigration is the sole responsibility of the federal government under the Constitution.
Former President Donald Trump relied heavily on executive powers for his immigration agenda because he failed to get enough support for his policies in Congress. Now, some of his supporters say that Biden is going too far in doing the same to reverse them.
The first legal test is in Texas, where the Republican governor and the attorney general are challenging the Democratic president’s 100-day moratorium on deportations, which took effect on Friday.
The Department of Homeland Security told lawmakers, just before Biden took office last week, that he reached nine agreements, most with states, according to a Congress official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss information that is not yet in place. publicly available.
The department declined to comment, citing the suit. The Trump administration, generally eager to flaunt immigration enforcement, has remained publicly silent about the deals, which were first reported by BuzzFeed News.
The nine-page agreements known as Sanctuary for Americans First Enactment, or SAFE, are expansive. They require state and local governments to receive 180 days notice of changes in the number of immigration agents, the number of people released from immigration custody, inspection priorities, asylum criteria and who qualifies for status. cool.
Without providing evidence, the agreements say that more flexible enforcement can hurt education, health, housing and jobs.
Sheriff Sam Page of Rockingham County, North Carolina, on the border with Virginia, signed an agreement on December 22.
“Any new government is likely to make policy changes,” said the sheriff. “Policy changes at the federal level affect us at the local level. We expect the SAFE agreement to promote timely communications about any significant future policy changes. We are simply asking for a warning about these changes. “
Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry, a Republican, signed an agreement on December 15 to “stem the tide of illegal immigration,” said spokesman Cory Dennis.
“While some may try to blur the boundaries, there is a difference between legal and illegal immigration, and it is important to recognize that,” he said. “Our office will continue to be a vigilant for any changes in immigration policies that could be detrimental to the people of Louisiana.”
In Indiana, former state attorney general Curtis Hill, a Republican, signed the deal on December 22. Rachel Hoffmeyer, spokeswoman for Governor Eric Holcomb, said it will remain in effect after an initial review.
Katie Conner, spokeswoman for Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich, confirmed that the state has signed, saying it “has several cooperation agreements with federal, state and local enforcement agencies, including DHS.”
In addition to the deportation moratorium, the Biden government has suspended a policy to make asylum seekers wait in Mexico for hearings in the US immigration court. Six of Biden’s 17 executive orders on the first day dealt with immigration, such as suspending work on a border wall with Mexico and lifting the travel ban for people from several predominantly Muslim countries.
Hiroshi Motomura, professor of law and immigration policy at the University of California Law School in Los Angeles, called the deals “a very unusual last-minute thing” and said they raise questions about how a government can tie the hands of its successor. He believes that a deportation moratorium was within the power of a president.
Steve Legomsky, professor emeritus at the University of Washington School of Law and former chief adviser to the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, said the deals are “a bad idea” that could create “a race to the bottom. “, with states opposed to immigration competing with each other to take immigrants elsewhere.
“Throughout our history, immigration policy has been understood as the exclusive responsibility of the federal government,” said Legomsky.
Maintaining immigration oversight with the federal government allows the country to speak with one voice as a matter of foreign policy and consistency across states, said Legomsky. “We cannot have 50 conflicting sets of immigration laws operating at the same time,” he said.
The Biden government presented similar arguments in a lawsuit on Sunday after Texas asked a federal judge to block the deportation moratorium.
Texas, which challenged the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program to protect hundreds of thousands of young people from deportation, argued that the moratorium violated its agreement with Homeland Security. The state also argued that the moratorium violates federal regulatory procedures.
U.S. District Judge Drew Tipton in Victoria, Texas, who was appointed last year by Trump, held hearings on Friday and Monday to consider Texas’s request.
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Associated Press writers Ben Fox in Washington, Gary Robertson in Raleigh, North Carolina, Casey Smith in Indianapolis, Melinda Deslatte in Baton Rouge, Louisiana and Anita Snow in Phoenix contributed to this report.