President Joe Biden's order freezing deportations for 100 days is a violation of federal law and will be contested in court, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said Friday on Newsmax TV.
"We have a memorandum of understanding with Homeland Security that they would give us notice in time if they were going to adjust policy," Paxton said on "National Report." "Not only are they adjusting policy here, but the administration's Department of Homeland Security is violating federal law, which requires that these immigration laws be followed, including those laws that relate to deportation."
Texas, he said, will challenge the decision based on "the fact that they're not following the agreement that they had with us, they're not following federal law, and they're not following the Constitution."
Biden's move to stop construction on the border wall is also endangering Texans as the state has "many stories of people being harmed by illegal immigration," said Paxton. "There were many stories, especially prior to [President Donald] Trump coming into office, and [Trump was] starting to stop this from happening."
And with the still-raging coronavirus pandemic and "the uncertainty of having people crossing our border who are already on their way up ... who knows what's going to happen? I always thought that Joe Biden was very concerned about the coronavirus, but apparently, as it relates to illegal immigration, it doesn't apply," he said.
Paxton said he and other Texas officials haven't heard back yet from the Biden administration, but "we expect a response."
Paxton also said he doesn't think Biden's call to stop construction of the Keystone XL pipeline and new rules on drilling will play out well for the United States because that will endanger the energy independence Trump brought.
"We became less dependent on countries that are maybe not our friends at times," Paxton said. "It was nice, especially from my state, but really for the entire country because we could depend on those sources. And once you start attacking those, we just find ourselves back in the position we've been in before, which is dependent on [other] countries."
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