Washington, DC – Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who is currently under indictment in Texas for state felony securities fraud and facing an FBI corruption investigation, prompted by his own staffers, has confessed to his scheme to use the federal courts to upend federal immigration law.
In an article documenting Paxton’s use of federal courts to thwart President Biden’s agenda, The Texas Tribune reported, “In addition to trying to reverse Biden’s agenda, Paxton’s office has indicated that it wants to undo a more fundamental part of U.S. law — particularly court rulings that say the federal government has the sole authority over enforcement of immigration laws.”
At America’s Voice, we call this the anti-immigrant judicial pipeline, which David Leopold, America’s Voice legal advisor, outlined, “The pipeline flows from Republican Attorneys General to hand-picked United States District Court Judges (usually Trump appointees in Texas), to the conservative Fifth Circuit and finally, to the United States Supreme Court.”
According to David Leopold, Legal Advisor to America’s Voice:
Ken Paxton’s strategy has been obvious for anyone paying attention. He and his fellow Republican Attorneys General are using the Trump appointed judges on the courts to achieve their own policy goals. They’ve sued the administration over everything from mask mandates to blocking the Keystone XL Pipeline, but Paxton’s favorite target is immigration. The Republicans start by attacking Biden’s immigration policy before Trump appointed judges in Texas, all the while knowing that whatever happens they’re all but guaranteed a warm reception in the 5th circuit court of appeals. Their ultimate goal is obvious: get their cases to the conservatives on the Supreme Court, who make no pretense of their political agenda. Paxton’s goal is to upend federal immigration law by utilizing an obviously politicized judiciary in what I call the ‘anti-immigrant judicial pipeline.’ The scheme is simple; nativist Republicans can’t achieve their goals through the legislative process, so they count on their political allies in the judiciary. Paxton’s abuse of the process and the political machinations of the judges and justices gives House and Senate Democrats all the reasons they need to expand the Supreme Court.
