Last week, President Biden announced a slew of new vaccine mandates that would require federal workers and companies with 100 or more employees to be fully vaccinated against the Wuhan coronavirus or undergo regular testing, as we reported. However, as we also reported, migrants who enter the United States through the southern border are not required to provide proof of vaccination or undergo and produce a negative Covid test.
This double standard is what prompted Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich to file a lawsuit against the Biden administration's federal vaccine mandates, his office said in a news release on Tuesday. Brnovich is the first state attorney general to file a lawsuit against Biden's new vaccine mandates, though several others have suggested they will take similar action.
"This case presents circumstances that would have been unthinkable to our Founding Fathers," Brnovich wrote in the complaint. "The Executive Branch has adopted an unconstitutional policy of favoring aliens that have unlawfully entered the United States over actual U.S. citizens, both native and foreign born, with the inalienable right to live here. In doing so, the Biden Administration respected the putative rights of those illegally entering the United States, while simultaneously showing contempt for the actual rights of U.S. citizens."
Brnovich argues that Biden's vaccine mandates are a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause.
"This reflects an unmistakable – and unconstitutional – brand of favoritism in favor of illegal migrants," the release reads. "The AGO argues Biden's vaccine mandate violates the Equal Protection Clause by favoring migrants that have crossed into the country illegally over legal U.S. citizens. The Biden Administration allows migrants to decline the vaccine, protecting their freedom and bodily autonomy more than American citizens."
In a statement published Tuesday, Brnovich doubled down on this stance. "The federal government cannot force people to get the COVID-19 vaccine. The Biden Administration is once again flouting our laws and precedents to push their radical agenda," Brnovich said in the statement. "There can be no serious or scientific discussion about containing the spread of COVID-19 that doesn't begin at our southern border."
Following suit with the governors and other lawmakers who've come forward against the vaccine mandates, the complaint explains how it is "unconstitutional" and "one of the greatest infringements upon individual liberties, principles of federalism, and separation of powers ever attempted by any administration in the history of our Republic."