Florida judge blocks Biden administration from releasing migrants without court notices 

A Florida federal judge on Thursday night temporarily blocked the Biden administration from releasing migrants into the US without notices to appear in court, arguing that the controversial new policy is similar to one struck down earlier this year.    

The temporary restraining order was issued by District Judge T. Kent Wetherell II and will take effect at 11:59 p.m. EDT Thursday, corresponding with the expiration of Title 42, the pandemic-era policy that allowed for the swift removal of migrants apprehended crossing the border.

Thousands of migrants were already believed to have been released from Border Patrol custody on Thursday under the Biden administration’s new directive to simply start releasing asylum seekers, without giving them court dates to plead their cases or any ability to track where in the country they are.

The order will be in effect for two weeks. The judge noted that the government has “an opportunity to seek an emergency stay from a higher court.”

Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody sued the Biden administration on Thursday arguing that a memo issued by Border Patrol Chief Raul Ortiz on Wednesday titled “Policy on Parole with Conditions in Limited Circumstances Prior to the Issuance of a Charging Document (Parole with Conditions)” was a  “materially identical” policy to Parole+ATD.

“The Biden Administration’s behavior, if left unchecked, makes a mockery of our system of justice and our Constitution,” the lawsuit stated, with Moody contending that an expected crush of migrants after the end of Title 42 – set to expire Friday at midnight – will inevitably overrun border officials and trigger a mass influx of illegal immigrants into American cities.

Wetherell indicated that “Florida has a substantial likelihood of success” in challenging the Biden administration’s plan to mass release migrants “because the challenged policy appears to be materially indistinguishable from the Parole+ATD policy vacated in Florida — both in its purpose (reducing overcrowding at border patrol facilities) and manner of operation (releasing aliens into the country without first issuing a charging document placing them in immigration proceedings and simply directing the aliens to report to ICE within a specified period for further processing).”

In Wetherell’s scathing critique of the Biden administration, he calls the crisis at the border a “problem” that is “largely one of [the administration’s] own making through the adoption an implementation of policies that have encouraged the so-called ‘irregular migration’ that has become fairly regular over the past 2 years.”

In March, Wetherell blocked the Biden administration from using humanitarian parole and “alternatives to detention” to mass release migrants, a policy critics refer to as “catch and release.”

Moody celebrated the order after it came down. 

“We took swift action to protect the American people from [Biden’s] unlawful plan to release thousands of illegal immigrants when Title 42 lifts in an hour. I am grateful for the quick decision by the federal judge,” Moody said in a tweet.