True to form, the federal position papers were accepted for filing earlier today, in the federal district court, for the Western District of Texas. No surprise -- embittered old Abbott is going to lose -- again. The opposition is muscular, sensible and. . . correct. Here's the whole 34 page PDF filing -- and the money quotes:
. . .Counts 1 and 2 in Texas’s complaint seek to do indirectly -- through an injunction from this Court -- what it cannot do directly: use state tort law to regulate how federal officials conduct their law-enforcement function. But States cannot “control” federal agents’ “performance of their duties.” Johnson v. Maryland, 254 U.S. 51, 57 (1920); see Leslie Miller, Inc. v. Arkansas, 352 U.S. 187, 190 (1956); Geo Grp., Inc. v. Newsom, 50 F.4th 745, 755 (9th Cir. 2022). And no “specific congressional action” authorizes this “regulation by a subordinate sovereign.” Hancock v. Train, 426 U.S. 167, 179 (1976); see El-Shifa Pharm. Indus. Co., 607 F.3d at 854 (Kavanaugh, J., concurring) (noting that “the APA does not borrow state law or permit state law to be used as a basis for seeking injunctive or declaratory relief against the United States”). To hold otherwise would allow States to flip the Supremacy Clause on its head; States could regulate federal officials and then run to federal court for an injunction based on state law. . . .
Border Patrol agents have cut or moved the wire where the wire prevents them from performing their statutory duties to inspect, apprehend, and process noncitizens who have unlawfully entered the United States or from rendering aid to distressed individuals. Id. ¶ 16. Contrary to Texas’s allegation, Compl. ¶ 8, Border Patrol does not have a policy or procedure requiring agents to cut this wire, let alone for the purpose of destroying Texas’s property or of encouraging unlawful entry into the United States. BeMiller Decl. ¶¶ 17-18. Rather, agents have been advised to use their independent judgment, subject to supervisory review in appropriate circumstances, in determining whether cutting the wire is required to fulfill their responsibilities. . . .
[The] provisions [of] 8 U.S.C. §§ 1221–1231 “charge the Federal Government with the implementation and enforcement of the immigration laws governing the inspection, apprehension, examination, and removal of [noncitizens].” Garland v. Aleman Gonzalez, 142 S. Ct. 2057, 2064 (2022). As the Supreme Court has explained, § 1252(f)(1)’s reference to “the ‘operation’ of the relevant statutes is best understood to refer to the Government’s efforts to enforce or implement them.” Id. That is, “the ‘operation of the provisions’ is a reference . . . to the way that [it is] being carried out.” Id. Accordingly, with limited exceptions inapplicable here, § 1252(f)(1) “prohibits lower courts from entering injunctions that order federal officials to take or to refrain from taking actions to enforce, implement, or otherwise carry out the specified statutory provisions. . . .”
Here, Texas seeks to restrain Border Patrol agents from exercising their statutory functions under 8 U.S.C. § 1225 to inspect “applicants for admission,” id. § 1225(a)(1),(3) -- namely, as relevant here, those noncitizens who have already crossed the international boundary in the middle of the Rio Grande into the United States -- and to inspect, process, apprehend or detain them pending removal proceedings or expedited removal, id. § 1225; see also id. § 1226. . . .
Yep. Once again, Gov. Abbott imagines he is a king -- not a mere local minister. And he will get his John Brown hind-parts handed to him -- with that back porch. . . painted bright red, in the process -- in the next few weeks (AGAIN!), by federal judges.
नमस्ते
No comments:
Post a Comment