a federal judge in Florida handed state Attorney General Ashley Moody a major win on Wednesday in her lawsuit filed against the Biden administration over its “catch and release” policy, releasing foreign nationals in the country illegally into the U.S. instead of deporting them.
Moody argued since she filed the lawsuit in March 2021 that the program is illegal. On Wednesday, a federal judge agreed.
In a scathing 109-page opinion, U.S. District Judge T. Kent Wetherell for the Northern District of Florida Pensacola Division ruled the Biden administration’s “catch-and-release” policy is unlawful and “due to be vacated.” He also denied the administration’s motion for summary judgment, vacated the administration’s “Parole+ATD” Policy under the Administrative Procedures Act, and gave the administration seven days to seek appellate review and comply with federal law and his ruling.
Wetherell, of the U.S. District Court of the Northern District of Florida, ruled, “The Court finds in favor of Florida because, as detailed below, the evidence establishes that Defendants have effectively turned the Southwest Border into a meaningless line in the sand and little more than a speedbump for aliens flooding into the country by prioritizing ‘alternatives to detention’ over actual detention and by releasing more than a million aliens into the country – on ‘parole’ or pursuant to the exercise of ‘prosecutorial discretion’ under a wholly inapplicable statute – without even initiating removal proceedings.”
