On Tuesday afternoon, U.S. District Judge Drew Tipton, a Donald Trump appointee, issued a bizarre decision purporting to block Joe Biden’s 100-day halt on deportations. Tipton’s order, which applies nationwide, claims to freeze Biden’s effort to pause the Department of Homeland Security’s deportation machine while the new president revises its priorities. In reality, however, it is unclear whether the order will do anything. Tipton does not appear to have a rudimentary understanding of either immigration law or the practical realities of the immigration system. His ignorance may well render Tuesday’s order effectively toothless.
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Third, and most importantly, Tipton’s decision is utterly divorced from both the entire framework of federal law governing deportation and the removal system as it functions on the ground. The thrust of Tipton’s reasoning is that a federal statute says the government “shall remove” an immigrant who has been “ordered removed” within 90 days. But, as the Supreme Court recognized as recently as last June, federal law also gives DHS sweeping discretion to determine which immigrants to deport and when. A slew of statutes and regulations recognize this authority and address immigrants who are not removed within 90 days, a clear signal that this deadline is not, in fact, an iron rule.
