HOUSTON — An attorney with the U.S. Justice Department on Friday made his final pitch to a federal judge to keep in place a key element of President Joe Biden’s immigration policy that allows a limited number of people from four countries in the Americas to enter the U.S. on humanitarian grounds.
The program allows up to 30,000 people into the U.S. each month from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela. It’s being challenged in a lawsuit filed by Texas and 20 other Republican-leaning states. Migrants paroled under the program have sponsors in the country who vouch for them financially.
Brian Ward, a lawyer with the U.S. Justice Department, argued that the humanitarian parole program has helped migrants from these four countries flee violence, political upheaval and economic instability. The program has also helped reduce the strain on resources and on border agents along the U.S.-Mexico border.
“The goal is to reduce numbers overall and decrease the pressure on the southwest border,” Ward said during closing arguments in a brief trial in federal court in Victoria, Texas, that began Thursday and was set to finish Friday.
U.S. District Judge Drew Tipton was not expected to rule immediately on the legality of the parole program once closing arguments wrapped up. A decision could come months down the road.
On Thursday, Tipton said he was uncomfortable with issuing any temporary order in the case that would halt the parole program nationwide because while Texas and the other states suing have argued it’s harming them, “a lot of states have said it benefits them.” Tipton said such orders tend to come from the U.S. Supreme Court.
Lawyers for Texas and the other states say the Biden administration has created its own immigration program that operates outside the law. The large numbers of migrants being paroled in the U.S. show officials are granting parole en masse and not on a case-by-case basis as required by law, they contend.
The administration “created a shadow immigration system,” Gene Hamilton said Thursday. He’s an attorney with America First Legal Foundation, a conservative legal nonprofit led by former Trump adviser Stephen Miller that’s working with the Texas Attorney General’s Office to represent the states.
During testimony Thursday, an American who is sponsoring one of the migrants - a 34-year-old friend from Nicaragua named Oldrys - praised the program’s economic benefits and credited it with letting him reciprocate kindness to someone who has suffered financial hardship in his home country.
“We really see this as an opportunity to welcome Oldrys into our family …. in a time of need for him,” Eric Sype said.
Oldrys, whose last name has not been released, now lives in Sype’s childhood home in Washington state, where Sype’s cousin has offered him a job on the family’s farm.
Sype was the only witness during the trial as attorneys for Texas and the U.S. Justice Department, which is representing the federal government in the lawsuit, didn’t offer testimony and rested their cases based on evidence previously submitted.
Lawyers for Texas argued that the program is forcing the state to spend millions of dollars on health care and public education costs associated with the paroled migrants. Immigrant rights groups representing Sype and six other sponsors called those claims inaccurate.
As of the end of July, more than 72,000 Haitians, 63,000 Venezuelans, 41,000 Cubans and 34,000 Nicaraguans had been vetted and authorized to come to the U.S. through the program.
The lawsuit has not objected to the use of humanitarian parole for tens of thousands of Ukrainians who came after Russia’s invasion.
The parole program was started for Venezuelans in fall 2022 and then expanded in January. People taking part must apply online, arrive at an airport and have a sponsor. If approved, they can stay for two years and get a work permit.
Other programs the administration has implemented to reduce illegal immigration have also faced legal challenges.
Tipton, a Donald Trump appointee, has previously ruled against the Biden administration on who to prioritize for deportation.
The trial is being livestreamed from Victoria to a federal courtroom in Houston.
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