Border counties to sue Biden for 'failure to enforce the laws'

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The county in Texas that witnessed the flood of 30,000 migrants earlier this month has said it will unite with neighboring counties to sue the Biden administration and push action at the southern border.

"We’ve talked about immigration reform for as long as I can remember. Both parties have had control of Washington at one point or another over the last 20 years, and we have failed to do anything about it other than create the mess that we have today," Val Verde County Commissioner Beau Nettleton said in a Tuesday night meeting. 

"It is inexcusable," he added. 

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Nettleton said it was time for fellow border counties and cities to join forces in a suit to challenge U.S. immigration policies that have led to the largest influx of migrants at the southern border in more than 20 years.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) have reported more than 1.5 million illegal bordering crossings during the fiscal year 2021 – a figure that has not yet included the number of illegal encounters during the month of September.

"I don’t have the answer as to whether a lawsuit solves this problem, but it draws attention to this problem," Nettleton said. "They took the same oath of office that I did, which was to uphold the constitution…they need to comply with that oath and do their job and stop this mess."

President Biden has received fierce backlash from both Republicans and Democrats on the Hill for the administration’s failure to address the crisis at the southern border. 

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Democrats are furious over the continued use of Trump-era policies, like Title 42, which permits expedited deportations as a precaution to the coronavirus pandemic. 

But members of the GOP have claimed Trump-era policies that stymied that flow migrants have been made ineffective. 

Republicans have condemned Biden’s reversal of "Remain in Mexico" and his move to exempt unaccompanied minors from Title 42 – resulting in what some believe is the reason there has been a historic spike in illegal minor arrivals.

"I am all for people coming into this country legally – that’s what built this country," Nettleton said. "This is not a legal process, this is not the right way to do it."

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The Texas commissioner said years of ineffective policies have forced border towns to unfairly carry the burden. 

"Fifty percent of the population of this city was sitting underneath our International Bridge – how is a town of this size, with our tax base supposed to deal with that problem," he said, referring to the flood of Haitian migrants earlier this month. 

"It is a complete failure of everything that is going on in Washington, for not just the last couple of years, but for many, many years."