Moody Leads 27 States in Demanding Prohibition of Catch and Release at Border

After the Hamas attack in Israel, some fear the United States is next, thanks to the ongoing border crisis. Florida Attorney General (AG) Ashley Moody has taken action, leading a coalition of 27 states in forcing the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to expressly prohibit ongoing catch-and-release policies.

AG Moody and the Attorneys General of 27 other states filed a Petition for Rulemaking demanding the DHS follow mandatory detention laws already in place for migrants illegally crossing the border. As their letter notes, DHS "has abused the parole authority for several years" in order to release migrants en masse into the United States, which is "flagrantly unlawful."

Moreover, the first court dates for these migrants are often up to ten years from now, not including the additional five for further immigration proceedings. As a result, "DHS's unlawful decisions to release aliens subject to mandatory detention are allowing millions of unauthorized aliens to remain in the interior of the country for fifteen years or longer before they can be removed."

Combined with recent statistics showing 151 individuals on the known or suspected terrorist watchlist have been encountered at the southern border in Fiscal Year 2023 alone, fears of a terror attack in the United States as warned by Governor Ron DeSantis (R-FL) and Representative Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) are not unfounded.

In her press release, AG Moody repeated the sentiment, saying, "The Biden administration must secure our border to protect our national security."

"Given the massive flood of unvetted migrants into the interior of our country, there is no way to know who is in the U.S. or if they plan to enact terror on Americans. Given the risks illustrated by what happened this weekend in Israel, I am leading a coalition of 27 attorneys general taking action to force the Biden administration to enact responsible rulemaking to ensure our nation’s security at our Southern Border," said Moody.

Moody has been a ferocious critic of the Biden Administration's handling of the border, calling them the Mexican drug cartels' "biggest benefactor" in March and accusing Biden and DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas of facilitating child trafficking at the border in April after a Florida grand jury found evidence of 250,000 children hastily processed at the border were often victims of human trafficking.