HELENA – Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen and 22 other state attorneys general filed a brief this week supporting the State of Florida’s lawsuit against the Biden Administration’s unlawful immigration policy of releasing illegal border crossers into the country instead of detaining them as the law requires.

This policy flagrantly violates federal immigration law and encourages immigrants to try and cross the border illegally, hoping to be released into the interior. Since taking office, President Biden has seen an illegal immigration explosion of more than 5.5 million, five times larger than the population of Montana and larger than the population of 27 other states.

“The Administration’s en masse parole of aliens violates federal immigration law and abdicates its responsibility to secure the nation’s borders. The Administration claims that its latest policy is necessary to address the emergency on the border. But the emergency is of its own making, and its unlawful policy merely compounds the emergency,” the amicus brief states. “The Administration’s failure to secure the border also increases States’ law enforcement costs and greatly exacerbates the public safety issues they face.”

The Administration has released more than a million immigrants it encountered at the border into the interior. The Administration’s policy of “catch and release” rather than detaining them has not only encouraged more illegal immigration but also dangerous criminal activity like fentanyl smuggling and human trafficking, both of which have exacted a terrible toll on this country.

The other 22 states that joined the brief were Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wyoming.

Click here to read the full brief.