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  • January 21, 2025
Red State AG slams Biden admin’s attempt to ‘rewrite’ immigration law: ‘Alice in Wonderland stuff’

Red State AG slams Biden admin’s attempt to ‘rewrite’ immigration law: ‘Alice in Wonderland stuff’

A federal judge in North Dakota blocked one Biden administration rule that allowed Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients to apply for ObamaCare coverage through the Affordable Care Act.

Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach, who led the lawsuit against the Biden administration, called the judge’s ruling “not surprising” in an interview with Fox News Digital on Monday.

“In this case, there was an argument before the election and during the hearing we certainly got the impression that the judge would rule the way he did,” Kobach told Fox News Digital. “And similarly, there are a lot of other cases where Republican states challenged the Biden administration’s policies, while once again the Biden administration just tortured the English language and changed the meaning of statutes.”

“And so the Biden administration tried to say, ‘Well, we’re just going to define these categories of illegal aliens as being legally present even if they’re not,’” Kobach said. “It’s Alice in Wonderland stuff.”

TRUMP CLAIMS GOP ‘VERY OPEN’ TO KEEPING ‘DREAMERS’ IN US, TAKES SHOT ON ‘VERY DIFFICULT’ DEMS

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Immigration rights activists take part in a rally in front of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, DC, on November 12, 2019. (Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images)

In the preliminary injunction released on Monday, US court Judge Dan Traynor – appointed by President Trump during his first term – sided with 19 attorneys general who filed a lawsuit against Biden’s administration in August. The attorneys general argued it violates a law banning ObamaCare benefits for illegal immigrants. Biden’s regulations will now not be enforced in those states.

“The Court concludes, on a common-sense basis, that the strong health care incentive will encourage aliens who would otherwise leave the plaintiff states to remain,” Traynor wrote.

The Biden administration’s executive action aimed to redefine illegal aliens as legally present. The states that opposed the ruling were Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Ohio, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia . ​​

If Biden’s statement were to stand in place, it would have resulted in more than 100,000 uninsured illegal immigrants gain access to health insurance. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) rule would also have allowed DACA recipients to apply for coverage through HealthCare.gov and state-based marketplaces. The rule would have done this by making what HHS calls “technical changes” to the definition of “lawfully present” used to determine eligibility.

FIREBRAND GOP LEGISLATIVES DEMAND MAYORKAS BORDER CRISIS RECORDS FOR TRUMP ADMIN KEPT: ‘Undo the damage done’

A line of migrants lined a fence at night

A group of migrants await Border Patrol processing in the Rio Grande Valley, Texas. (Bill Melugin/Fox News)

President Obama announced the DACA program on June 15, 2012 as an executive action to address the plight of young people. illegal immigrants brought to the US as children. The program was not passed by Congress, but was implemented through a memorandum from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

CLICK HERE FOR MORE COVERAGE OF THE BORDER SECURITY CRISIS

Kris Kobach

Kansas Republican Attorney General Kris Kobach (AP Photo/John Hanna)

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Trump’s first term tried to end DACA, but failed Supreme Court blocked it in 2020.

“The impact on federal taxpayers, if these Biden regulations had gone through, would have been enormous, because the benefit of getting the ObamaCare subsidy in any given year could have been about $4,000,” Kobach said. “But if you multiply that by the hundreds of Dreamers who would have gotten this benefit, and they would have gotten it year after year… that would have been basically every illegal alien who has a work permit, and that would be in the thousands. So the total impact would have been, the total financial impact on taxpayers would certainly have been in the millions, possibly in the hundreds of millions.”

Centers for Medicare & Medicaid services (CMS) said in a statement to the media that it is reviewing a lawsuit, but does not comment on pending litigation.

Adam Shaw of Fox News Digital contributed to this report.