Attorney General Jason Miyares announced Virginia’s decision to join a 20-state coalition of attorneys general who seek to compel the Biden administration to defend an illegal immigration law on Wednesday.
The coalition of attorney generals, led by Kansas, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and West Virginia, seek to intervene in a lawsuit brought by those advocating on behalf of illegal immigrants against President Joe Biden’s Department of State.
In their lawsuit, the activists target a provision in the United States’ Circumvention of Lawful Pathways rule that stipulates those who illegally cross from Mexico are ineligible for asylum protections.
According to Miyares and the other attorneys general, the Biden administration has entered settlement discussions with the plaintiffs.
“Every single state has become a border state thanks to President Biden’s mishandling of the southern border. Despite it being clear that the drugs and illegal immigrants flooding our country are hurting every single community, President Biden refuses to defend his own immigration laws,” Miyares said in a statement.
Miyares said the Biden administration’s decision to settle with the group is “wrong, reckless, and doesn’t make sense.”
In addition to Virginia, states with participating attorneys general include Alaska, Arkansas, Florida Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Ohio, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, and Utah.
Parties behind the lawsuit include the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) Immigrant Rights Project and the Center for Gender & Refugee Studies.
The request by the attorneys general to intervene in the lawsuit comes as the illegal immigration crisis continues, with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services recently confirming it processed 10 million immigration cases in 2023 alone.
It was also recently revealed that immigration judges have dismissed nearly 200,000 deportation cases, which were prosecuted by the Biden administration, because attorneys at the Department of Justice (DOJ) failed to complete the relevant paperwork.
Miyares recently celebrated the success of another coalition of state attorneys who helped compel the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to freeze new climate change rules that would require publicly listed companies to file disclosures about their impact on climate change.
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Tom Pappert is the lead reporter for The Tennessee Star, and also reports for The Georgia Star News, The Virginia Star, and The Arizona Sun Times. Follow Tom on X/Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
