A federal judge issued an order Monday halting President Biden’s new deportation amnesty for illegal-immigrant spouses of U.S. citizens, saying it makes sense to keep the program on ice until courts can decide whether it is legal.
U.S. District Judge J. Campbell Barker didn’t decide any of those legal issues in his brief ruling. Instead his order was based on which side bears more risk of damage should it lose the case.
He said if the Biden administration were to lose, it would be difficult to unwind any permits already granted to illegal immigrants. So it made more sense to block them, for now.
“The claims are substantial and warrant closer consideration than the court has been able to afford to date,” he wrote.
He said Homeland Security, which is running the program, can still set up the “process” for illegal immigrant spouses to apply, but the department cannot grant any of those applications.
The ruling is an early win for Texas and a group of other GOP-led states, who sued last week to stop the program.
“This is a huge victory,” said Stephen Miller, president of America First Legal, which is assisting the states in the lawsuit.
The program, which began accepting applications a week ago, applied to illegal immigrants who have been in the U.S. for 10 years and who are currently married to a U.S. citizen.
They have a path to citizenship by dint of their marriage, but that path generally requires that they travel out of the U.S. to collect a legal visa and then return.
Mr. Biden is offering them what’s known as “parole in place,” which is a defense against deportation and a tentative legal status. It also forgives the requirement to travel abroad and would allow the illegal immigrants to gain permanent legal status without needing to leave.
The government figures some 500,000 illegal immigrants are eligible for that. The program also covers some 50,000 children of the illegal immigrant spouses.
Texas said the program goes beyond what the law allows.
Under the law, parole is supposed to be granted on a case-by-case basis when there’s a “significant” benefit to the U.S. public. It also is supposed to be used to parole people “into” the U.S.
Texas argues that the illegal immigrants in question here are already in the U.S. so they can’t be paroled “into” the country. Texas also challenged the public benefit of allowing illegal immigrants to remain.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
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