Ken Paxton, Texas AG, sues Biden to force COVID-19 rules to apply to illegal immigrants

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued President Biden on Thursday, asking federal courts to make the federal government follow its own COVID rules when it comes to illegal immigrants jumping the border.

Mr. Paxton said Homeland Security has released tens of thousands of illegal immigrants into the country despite a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention pandemic emergency order calling for the migrants to be expelled.

“More Texans will be exposed to COVID-19, more Texans will contract COVID-19, more Texans will die from COVID-19, and Texas will incur significant costs in terms of healthcare and law enforcement resources,” Mr. Paxton argued in the lawsuit, filed in federal district court in Fort Worth.

Biden administration officials have struggled to explain the double-standard for those entering the U.S. Legal arrivals, including returning U.S. citizens, are supposed to show a clean COVID test and are supposed to follow quarantine protocols.

But tens of thousands of illegal immigrants are jumping the border without a test. Those that are caught are held in Border Patrol custody before being transferred, where most will get tests, though even those administering those tests have questioned their usefulness, since the migrants have just spent hours or days in close quarters and may have been exposed but not yet able to test positive.

During the Trump administration most of the new illegal arrivals were being immediately expelled back to Mexico under the CDC order. The Biden administration has altered that policy.

Texas has been the chief location for the new arrivals.

Mr. Paxton said there is room for case-by-case exceptions to the CDC rules, but he said the Biden administration has gone well beyond that to mass releases.

The Republican attorney general said if the administration doesn’t want to enforce the CDC order, it should hold the migrants in custody so they can’t become vectors for COVID in the community.