Remember those widely-ridiculed agreements that anti-immigrant goofball Ken Cuccinelli, an unlawfully appointed former official with the previous administration, signed into place purporting that any future immigration changes by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) would first have to be run by certain localities before the federal government could act?
Well, following a BFD of executive orders signed into place by President Joe Biden on his first day in office, one of the most corrupt Republicans officials in the country is already threatening to sue. That notorious official is Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who spewed the legal threat after Biden ordered a 100-day moratorium on most deportations beginning Friday.
Paxton “says Biden administration is violating the agreement TX signed w/ Trump’s DHS, which said the agency would check in with Texas before making changes,” BuzzFeed News’ Hamed Aleazis tweeted. Paxton’s threat demands DHS immediately rescind the memo, as well as “an immediate response or we will seek relief to enjoin your order, as contemplated by the Agreement.”
To put it plainly, Ken Paxton can eat shit. Legal experts like Santa Clara University School of Law professor Pratheepan Gulasekaram have criticized the agreements, calling them “completely unmoored from legal, constitutional ways of implementing policy,” BuzzFeed News previously reported. “The agreements, as Ken Paxton well knows, are blatantly illegal,” tweeted Aaron Reichlin-Melnick. “Of course, that's never stopped him before. The Biden administration seems likely to take the correct step here; tell him to pound sand. The federal government can't contract away its right to make policy changes.”
Not to mention that Cuccinelli was unlawfully installed at DHS! A federal court had already previously ruled that the truly very strange Cuccinelli had also been unlawfully appointed to head U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). Reichlin-Melnick noted at the time that the previous administration had since dropped its appeal of that ruling, yet was still “letting him go to work every day.” Perhaps because they knew he’d be willing to put his signature to ridiculous policies like the one now trying to tie up the new administration.
Perhaps it’s better for Paxton to ease off on the threat and worry about his own ass. Still facing three felony securities fraud counts following endless delays in his court trial, he is also facing accusations of bribery and abuse of office after his own deputies reported him to federal authorities. Paxton was probably hoping for a last-minute pardon from the former mobster-in-chief, especially when he’s been a good little boy in helping him with his anti-immigrant agenda, but that never happened. Ha.
The Texas Tribune reports that Paxton was also among the handful of state attorneys general to not sign a letter from state leaders condemning the Trump-incited seditionist attack on the U.S. Capitol this month. When those handful of Republican attorneys general then released their own letter, Ken didn’t that sign that one either. “After inciting the violence we saw last week and wasting Texas taxpayer dollars on baseless lawsuits that never see any results, Paxton is an embarrassment to this state and a traitor to this country,” Texas Democratic Party spokesperson Abhi Rahman said in the report. And his stupid lawsuits keep coming.
