On February 23, 2021, a U.S. district judge in Texas blocked the Biden administration’s 100-day “pause” on certain removals announced in a memorandum on President Biden’s first day in office. The order applies nationwide but only to the 100-day pause, not to the entire memorandum.

“This preliminary injunction is granted on a nationwide basis and prohibits enforcement and implementation of the [100-day pause] in every place Defendants have jurisdiction to enforce and implement the January 20 Memorandum,” Judge Drew Tipton wrote. He said the Department of Homeland Security’s “core failure” was “its omission of a rational explanation grounded in the facts reviewed and the factors considered.” This “fatal” failure, Judge Tipton said, made the 100-day pause “arbitrary and capricious.”

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