Ashley Moody demands border control assurance from Joe Biden administration

Image via AG Gancarski

Attorney General Ashley Moody was among 20 Republican AGs signing on to a letter demanding federal assurances of tighter immigration policy.

The letter to U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland followed a favorable ruling in the U.S. Supreme Court affirming a lower court ruling ordering the reinstatement of the “remain in Mexico” policy, in a case filed by Texas and Missouri.

It is uncertain what that reinstatement will look like, with the upheld ruling calling for a “good faith effort,” a term of art that can have many meanings.

The attorneys general seek more specific guidelines, even as the Department of Homeland Security intends to continue challenging the ruling, according to the Associated Press.

The letter, a release from Moody’s office says, seeks “to ensure the Biden administration will faithfully defend a long-standing federal immigration statute that prohibits illegal re-entry to the U.S. by illegal aliens.”

“The President does not have the power to pick and choose the laws he must enforce — he must take care that all laws of the United States are faithfully executed. We need assurance that the Biden administration will defend long-standing federal immigration laws passed to protect Americans. The President needs to prioritize the safety and security of the American people over reckless political games,” Moody chides in a statement.

“Today, I am joining my colleagues from across the nation to ensure Biden’s Department of Justice will defend a long-standing federal immigration statute. Our nation’s security depends on it,” Moody warned.

The letter sets a Sept. 17 deadline for assurances the Biden administration will let the ruling stand.

“The States should not have to worry about the administration doing its job and defending federal law. But given this administration’s habit of policymaking through the expedient of strategic surrender, the States have reason to fear,” warn the signatories, the chief lawyers of Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah and West Virginia.

Moody has been a strong defender of Gov. Ron DeSantis‘ decision to send state law enforcement to the border. On a cable news hit earlier this summer, the AG agonized over “a Biden administration that has taken a wrecking ball to any sort of control or infrastructure at that border, and then throwing up their arms and abdicating any responsibility for dealing with the aftermath.”

Also this week, a letter from DeSantis to the head of Homeland Security demanded accountability on resettlement plans in Florida for those who crossed the southern border illegally.

“President Biden, Vice President (Kamala) Harris, and their administration have refused to fulfill their responsibility to enforce immigration laws enacted by Congress and the resulting influx of unvetted illegal aliens endangers our national security and undermines the socioeconomic well-being of hardworking American citizens,” DeSantis said Thursday, “Unfortunately, even though the federal government is responsible for immigration enforcement, it is the states who bear the brunt of this administration’s reckless immigration policies.“

“I have been to the border and I observed firsthand the chaos that this administration’s policies have created. To fill the void left by the federal government, Florida deployed its own law enforcement officers to the border, and they’ve (been) told that many of the illegal aliens apprehended there plan to end up in Florida. Floridians welcome responsible immigration that serves the interests of our citizens, but we cannot abide the lawlessness that this administration is aiding and abetting, and frankly encouraging, on the southwest border,” DeSantis asserted, in a statement from the Governor’s Office accompanying what was also a five-page letter to U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas.

The letter urges that undocumented immigrants be resettled in states “flouting” immigration laws, and makes a litany of demands on DHS.

The Governor visited Texas in July, weeks after sending a team of state law enforcement officers to the U.S.-Mexico border. Those uniformed forces found 70% of immigrants they stopped hoped to eventually reach Florida.

DeSantis blamed the “influx” of migrants on Biden’s reversal of former President Donald Trump‘s immigration policies.

“When someone comes pouring across, what they do is they hand them over to the feds, and the feds just released them,” DeSantis said. “They’re releasing huge amounts of people into the country.”

The border has offered DeSantis ample ammunition for his near-daily denunciations of all things Biden.

“So why don’t you do your job? Why don’t you get this border secure, and until you do that, I don’t want to hear a blip about COVID from you,” DeSantis said on Aug. 4 at a press conference, at the end of an extended harangue of Biden’s support for masking in public schools.