Circuit Judge Lawrence VanDyke sternly criticized the Biden administration on Wednesday for questionable ethics in their legal tactics in an immigration case, accusing the U.S. Department of Justice of “colluding” with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and other immigrant rights groups to surrender a policy reform to get tough on immigration.
The federal appeals court judge said the Biden team appears to be trying to bog the case down so that it does not reach the Supreme Court, where it could unravel years of pro-illegal-immigrant rulings out of the notoriously liberal 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
A federal appeals court judge berated the Biden administration on Wednesday for seemingly underhanded legal tactics in a key immigration case, accusing the Justice Department of "colluding" with the ACLU and other immigrant rights advocates to… https://t.co/g6u8FaFgTy
— The Washington Times (@WashTimes) February 22, 2024
The judge said he was not sure what the government was up to, but it looked like politically-motivated activity. He said Wednesday the White House may be trying to hold off a politically damaging loss, or it may be working in deep-state fashion to get a policy result that would tie the hands of future presidents who wanted to enforce immigration policy more strictly.
“At the very least it looks like the administration and its frenemies on the other side of this case are colluding to avoid playing their politically fraught game during an election year,” wrote Judge VanDyke.
The Biden Administration has failed America by failing to secure our border. These 100 stories show how the Biden Administration’s open door to illegal immigration is flooding America with fentanyl, human trafficking, and increased violence, bankrupting municipalities, and…
— Speaker Mike Johnson (@SpeakerJohnson) February 21, 2024
As a result, the judge wrote the government is evading responsibility for policy: “It could take credit for creating an important rule and defending it with one hand, and then, by colluding with the plaintiffs, it can set the policy it actually wants with the other, all while publicly blaming the result — cloaked as it is in the language of a judicial ‘settlement’ — on the courts.”
“Given all of this, it’s hard to avoid any impression other than that the administration is snatching defeat from the jaws of victory — purposely avoiding an ultimate win that would eventually come later this year, whether from this court or from the Supreme Court,” VanDyke wrote.
In recent days, the Biden administration has pivoted from working to pass a border deal in Congress as part of a package with military aid to Israel and Ukraine and financial support for their war-torn economies to taking the lead on border policy through executive orders.
