Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich claims the Biden administration is altering federal immigration law as part of "population augmentation strategies.”

The U.S. Department of Justice is calling that “a figment of the state's imagination.”

Brnovich seeks to use federal environmental laws to force the Biden administration to resume construction of the border wall.

Tyler Alexander, a trial attorney with the U.S. Department of Justice, says there are a host of reasons why Arizona can’t sue over the Biden administration's decision.

The National Environmental Policy Act requires the federal government to determine the effects of any change in federal policy.

Brnovich contends these changes have not just an immediate impact, such as more trash left by migrants in the desert, but will mean more people in the state and the country, which is bound to affect the environment.

That, he said, is all part of Biden's population augmentation program. So is the decision by Biden to scrap the "remain in Mexico'' policy of the Trump administration for handling asylum requests.

Michel Marizco/KJZZ

Border fence going up in Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument on Feb. 26, 2020.

"Cumulatively, the population augmentation programs will likely increase the population of the United States by hundreds of thousands — if not millions — of people, with a disproportionate share of the increased burdens occurring in Arizona,'' Brnovich contends.

Alexander told Judge Dominic Lanza there are a series of problems with all that — one being "there is no 'population augmentation program,'" he wrote.

"Arizona has not shown a connection between the so-called population augmentation programs and its alleged harms,''  Alexander also wrote.

Alexander says the state needs to show "a concrete, particularized and actual or imminent harm'' that is traceable to the decisions of the Biden administration. Instead, he said, Brnovich is offering "generic and speculative affidavits.''

Without that proof of harm, Alexander said, Lanza cannot issue the injunction sought by the state.

Alexander also pointed out that the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act, approved by Congress in 1996, specifically gives the government the power to waive environmental statutes and regulations if the director of the Department of Homeland Security determines it is necessary to complete security projects.

In fact, the Trump administration used that power to fast track some border construction projects.

Brnovich also argues that failing to finish the wall can harm wildlife by forcing them to alter their migration patterns. Alexander says canceling the construction actually retains existing migration corridors.