A federal judge in the Eastern District of Texas on Monday temporarily blocked a Biden administration program that allowed undocumented immigrants married to U.S. citizens to apply for green cards without leaving the United States.
The program, dubbed Keeping Families Together by the White House, would offer a type of legal relief known as “parole” to undocumented spouses of US citizens who could prove they had lived in the US continuously for at least 10 years and met a number of other requirements.
Typically, undocumented immigrants married to U.S. citizens must leave the country to apply for green cards and eventually citizenship, risking years or even permanent separation from their families. Parole would have allowed them to apply without leaving the United States
The White House estimated that 500,000 people were eligible for the program, and federal immigration agencies began accepting applications on August 19. But Republican lawyers in Texas and 15 other states sued Friday to end the program, prompting a judge to temporarily block it.
In filing the lawsuit, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said the program “directly violates laws created by Congress.”
U.S. District Judge J. Campbell Barker wrote in his decision that the states’ arguments “are significant and deserve closer scrutiny than the court has thus far afforded.”
Barker’s decision orders the government to stop granting parole under the program, but does not tell the government to stop accepting applications. Immigrants can still apply to the program, but their applications will not be processed until their stay ends.
The states that brought the suit were assisted by America First Legal, a group founded and led by Stephen Miller, an adviser to former President Donald Trump and an architect of many of his administration’s immigration policies. Miller called Monday’s ruling a “huge victory” in a news release.
Immigrants hoping to benefit from the program expressed pain and frustration. “This is heartbreaking,” said Foday Turay, who was brought to the United States from Sierra Leone as a child and now works as a prosecutor for the Philadelphia District Attorney’s office.
Turay was one of a group of immigrants who filed a motion Monday to intervene in the lawsuit to defend the program alongside the Justice Department. He is married to an American woman from New Jersey with whom he has a 1-year-old son.
“My wife and I really depended on this to get on with our lives and plan for our future,” he said. “It feels like a knife to the heart.”
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
