Trump Judge 'Sabotaged' Biden Border Plan, White House Says

A federal judge blocked President Joe Biden's attempt to navigate the expected surge of migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border amid Title 42 expiration, a legal move that the White House is condemning as sabotage.

Many Republican-led states like Florida and Texas have criticized Biden's approach to immigration, and U.S. District Judge T. Kent Wetherell blocked a new policy that would allow for some migrants to enter the U.S. without vetting given that they appear at the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement within 60 days. The policy was a strategy by the Biden administration to combat a surge of thousands of migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border as Title 42, an order installed under President Donald Trump that allowed the U.S. to turn away migrants at the border under the belief that they would exacerbate the COVID-19 pandemic expired on Thursday.

Border patrol officers were supplemented with 1,500 troops previously approved by Biden in advance of the expiration, but the Department of Homeland Security is expecting a sharp uptick in border crossings, as many as 18,000 migrants a day.

Under the Biden administration's new policy, migrants would be permitted to enter a parole period where they would be allowed entry into the United States given that they schedule an appointment with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement within 60 days. The parole would be granted on a case-by-case basis. However, Wetherell—a Florida judge appointed by Trump—blocked the policy on Thursday, arguing that it didn't differ from another plan that was deemed unconstitutional in March. The former policy released migrants into the U.S. without court dates if they utilized a mobile app that eventually granted them a court date.

The Biden Administration proposed the amended policy, which Wetherell argued mirrored the former policy and blocked.

The White House criticized the ruling, calling it a "sabotage" of the plan. White House Press Secretary called the "political play" from Republican officials "shameful" as the administration works to find a solution to the surge of migrants entering the U.S.

"Karine Jean-Pierre just called the decision of a federal judge to stop its 'parole' of migrants as 'sabotage ...pure and simple.' Judge T. Kent Wetherell Administration yesterday ...," attorney Jonathan Turley tweeted Friday afternoon.

Newsweek reached out to the White House by email for comment.

In a 17-page order, Wetherell explained that under the policy, noncitizens would have little to no vetting or monitoring prior to being released into the United States.

According to a report by Politico, lawyers representing the Biden administration argued that the policy was "necessary" to address the surge of migrants at the border as Title 42 expires.

Newsweek reported that since the Title 42 measure was implemented, an estimated 2.7 million migrants have been turned away.