Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton today filed a response to the Obama Administration’s April 30 and May 7 advisories, which confirm the unwieldiness of the President’s illegal amnesty plan. The Texas-led, bipartisan coalition of 26 states continues to hold the Obama Administration accountable for its misrepresentations to a federal district court and its admitted violation of a court order in prematurely implementing executive amnesty. In today’s filing with the federal district court, the states argued for increased oversight of the administration's compliance with the court's injunction, and for the opportunity to look into whether the defendants should be sanctioned for their misrepresentations to the court.

“Not even the Obama Administration has a full grasp of the complicated bureaucracy that defines the president’s illegal amnesty plan,” Attorney General Paxton said. “The newly-revealed admission that even more expanded work permits were granted to 2,000 illegal immigrants raises serious questions about the Obama Administration’s reliability moving forward. Increased oversight is needed to hold the federal government accountable for its apparent inability to report accurate information to the court.”

The district judge has already granted Texas’ request to compel the federal government to produce documents revealing who was involved in its misrepresentations over the issuance of expanded work permits. The Obama Administration, however, withheld virtually all of those documents from the states. Since then, the federal government has admitted to violating the district court's order against implementing expanded executive amnesty, admitting to the judge that 2,000 more individuals were prematurely granted expanded work permits.

The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas granted a preliminary injunction on February 16, halting the president’s November 2014 executive action on immigration from taking effect. Joining Texas in the lawsuit are: Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Michigan, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, West Virginia and Wisconsin.

View the filing