While Texas battles the feds over stopping the tsunami of illegal immigrants, Missouri is quietly and methodically pressing three lawsuits to force the Biden administration to secure the border.

One lawsuit, in conjunction with Texas, would compel Biden to make good on Congress’ $2 billion appropriation in 2020 to continue building the wall President Donald Trump started. The lawsuit was initially thrown out by a federal judge, but was reinstated and allowed to go forward last June by the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals.

“We anticipate obtaining a preliminary injunction against the Biden administration at the district court level in the coming days or weeks,” Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey told The Heartlander on Wednesday.

A second lawsuit is fighting the administration’s transformation of a specialized immigration “parole” program into a group visa program not authorized by Congress. In reality, the program is designed to allow an individual noncitizen into the country temporarily, usually for urgent humanitarian reasons – or, as Bailey notes, to testify in court against a cartel member.

The third lawsuit is over a Department of Homeland Security proposal to allow people in other countries to use an app to find a sponsor and enter the U.S. without official visa vetting.

It would seem the Biden administration is not only failing to secure the border, but is actively recruiting illegals to enter the country.

“Yeah, that’s right,” Bailey says.

“When you look at the way the Biden administration has perverted immigration law – to open up the parole process and create lawful pathways for illegal criminal aliens – that’s like hanging an ‘OPEN’ sign at the southern border and inviting people to come here, because it makes it look like our laws don’t matter.

“And then, when the president and the secretary refuse to finish building Trump’s border wall as they were commanded to do by Congress, again, that also undermines the rule of law.

“But it goes deeper, because we’re reaching a point of constitutional crisis. Congress has the power of the purse, and they exercise that power by commanding Secretary [Alejandro] Mayorkas to finish building Trump’s border wall. That power of the purse ceases to mean anything if the secretary and the president can just ignore it. And that’s why this lawsuit is so important.

“What we continually see is this ping-ponging between Congress saying ‘administration go do X, Y and Z,’ [and] the administration refusing to do it and doing the opposite …”

New cause for impeachment

The U.S. Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision this week allowing the feds to breach or remove the razor wire Texas has installed to secure the border is a new and combustible flashpoint arising from the Biden administration’s refusal to secure the border. The court’s decision should give Congress added impetus to impeach the Homeland Security secretary, Bailey maintains.

“If the secretary and the president are refusing to do their jobs, then it is absolutely incumbent upon the Congress to act by moving this impeachment proceeding forward,” says Bailey, who testified at a House impeachment hearing earlier this month.

Is not doing one’s job a reason for impeachment? Absolutely, Bailey says.

“I would submit to you that under the common law of England – and certainly this would have been understood at the time of the founding – a complete abdication of a public official’s legal responsibilities was a high crime and misdemeanor, and that’s what we see from Secretary Mayorkas today.”

Moreover, Bailey told Congress Mayorkas “is nullifying your constitutional authority over the power of the purse, and when that authority is no longer effective impeachment is the last option. I would point out that what we have here is not a policy disagreement; it’s a willful violation to carry out an explicit directive of this body and an abdication of his official duties.”

Bailey notes there’ve been more illegal entries into the U.S. under Biden and Mayorkas than the entire population of the state of Missouri. U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Missouri, also said this week that the number of known gotaways alone at the border has eclipsed the combined populations of Kansas City and St. Louis.

And it’s killing and hurting Missourians, Bailey argues.

“There are more than 1,100 reported incidents of human trafficking throughout the state of Missouri in a single year, making Missouri now the fourth-highest-ranking state for incidents of human trafficking. 

“There have been more than 1,500 fentanyl overdose deaths in one year – to include 43 innocent children who died from accidental fentanyl exposure. And that’s in one year alone. And so, Missouri communities are less safe because the Biden administration refuses to do its job on the southern border.”

Other battles over free speech, COVID, abortion

The border lawsuits are among a growing list of lawsuits Bailey’s office is plying to protect Missourians’ constitutional rights, as well as their health and safety.

Chief among them is the already-landmark Missouri v. Biden case to end the administration’s collusion and coercion with social media to censor disfavored speech online, particularly among conservatives. The case is considered so vital that the U.S. Supreme Court has decided to hear it before the lower courts could even finish doing so.

One thing driving the high court to intervene is the fact that the case will determine how free speech really is during the 2024 presidential election cycle. Bailey says written briefs are due at the Supreme Court in March, when he expects oral arguments to also be heard.

Besides that case, Missouri also has led a 20-state coalition in filing an amicus brief at the U.S. Supreme Court defending Texas and Florida laws banning social media censorship.

Bailey’s office also is suing China for allegedly hoarding personal protective equipment (PPE) during the COVID-19 pandemic. “If there is property owned by the Chinese Communist Party in the state of Missouri, and we receive judgment against them, we will execute that judgment and seize that property,” he tells The Heartlander.

In addition, Missouri, Kansas and Idaho earlier this month were allowed to join pro-life groups in a lawsuit against the Food and Drug Administration over distribution of abortion pill mifepristone through the mail and telemedicine.

“Mifepristone, approved by the FDA in 2000, is one of two drugs used in medication abortion, which accounts for more than half of U.S. abortions,” reports Reuters. “The recently formed Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine and other groups sued the FDA in 2022, saying it had not adequately considered the risks of the drug when it first approved it, or when it later eased restrictions on its distribution.”

An appeals court has ruled it’s too late to litigate mifepristone’s FDA approval, though the Supreme Court could differ on that.

“This is a powerful, dangerous chemical designed to take human life, and it harms women,” Bailey tells The Heartlander. “Certainly, the studies show that women who take this medication without any kind of supervision by a medical professional are more likely to have long-term negative health consequences and end up in the ER or require surgery. The FDA has rushed this pill to market and overridden or revoked health and safety measures that were in place to protect the health and safety of women and children.”

Bailey notes federal law has long prohibited the mailing of such drugs, “and yet the Biden administration seeks to violate federal statute with the flick of a pen by enacting a federal regulation, which again undermines the rule of law and puts the health and safety of women and children at risk.”

All these cases represent a sea change, begun by his predecessors and continued under Bailey, in the way the Missouri Attorney General’s Office operates, he says.

“I think what you’re seeing from Missouri is a new way of looking at an attorney general’s office. We are the upholders of the rule of law and the defenders of the Constitution and our freedoms. And when the other branches of government fail to discharge their responsibility, we step up and use the judicial process to do it for them.  

“And so, we’re finding new and innovative ways to hold wrongdoers accountable – things like the China lawsuit, things like Missouri v. Biden, things like our three lawsuits against the Biden administration on the border. Those are new and innovative ways of using the Missouri Attorney General’s Office to protect the people of Missouri and enforce the rule of law and defend the Constitution.”

Asked how his office has the resources for all this, Bailey credits his staff.

“Well, I have a great staff of dedicated professionals, some of the most brilliant attorneys in the state of Missouri, who are dedicated to the principles of freedom, safety and prosperity and love the Constitution and are willing to dedicate their professional careers to defending it.”