Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is suing the Biden administration over its alleged illegal use of a signature migrant admissions program through a phone app known as CBP One, his office announced Tuesday.
Paxton believes the app doesn’t square with the law because it invites migrants with no legal claims to be in the country to enter the U.S., according to the lawsuit. The Biden administration launched the use of CBP One to allow migrants to apply for U.S. entry in Mexico in January amid a surge in illegal crossings at the southern border. (RELATED: ‘It’s Bullsh*t’: Former, Current Border Officials Slam Biden Admin For Touting Success Of Illegal Immigration Policies)
The CBP One pathway for entry “enables noncitizens without appropriate documents for admission who seek to travel to the United States through certain southwest border land ports of entry (POEs) the ability to submit information through a module within the application instead of coming directly to wait at a POE,” according to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sits down with Daily Caller News Foundation investigative reporter Jennie Taer
“The Biden Administration deliberately conceived of this phone app with the goal of illegally pre-approving more foreign aliens to enter the country and go where they please once they arrive. Joe Biden, Alejandro Mayorkas, and the entire Biden Administration have prioritized creating and protecting new ways for illegal aliens to stream into this country, no matter the cost or consequence to struggling American citizens,” Paxton said in a statement Tuesday.
Since the program launched, CBP One has seen 79,000 individuals book appointments for entry, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), which processed 22,000 migrants for entry in April alone under the process.
The Biden administration has sought to more heavily rely on CBP One as Title 42, the Trump-era expulsion order, ended May 11.
“We continue to see encouraging signs that the measures we have put in place are working as a reminder, these measures combined strengthened consequences for unlawful entry at the land border with a significant expansion of lawful pathways for people to come directly to the United States in a safe and orderly manner,” DHS immigration official Blas Nunez Neto told reporters on a phone call Wednesday.
“Time after time, my office has shown that we will fight back in court to defeat their unlawful open-borders policies. We intend to stop this rule from wreaking further havoc on the people of Texas,” Paxton said.
In a statement to the Daily Caller News Foundation, a DHS spokesperson called the lawsuit “meritless.”
“This meritless action by the State of Texas seeks to block a measure that has helped reduce unlawful immigration by more than 70% since Title 42 lifted. It seeks to create the very disorder the Texas Attorney General claims he wants to prevent,” the spokesperson said.
“Lawful pathways like making an appointment to appear at a port of entry using the CBP One app allow us to process migrants in a safe, orderly, and humane way and reduce unlawful immigration. This is particularly critical at a time when Congress has failed to reform our broken immigration system,” the spokesperson added.
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