Image Credit: Kamala Harris | Facebook
By Bethany Blankley [The Center Square contributor] –
A 16-state coalition led by Texas has sued the Biden administration to stop a widespread amnesty plan from going into effect.
They did so two months after President Joe Biden announced the plan designed to fast track a path to citizenship for hundreds of thousands of foreign nationals who’ve been living in the country illegally for more than 10 years and who are married to a U.S. citizen.
Part of his plan was implemented by the Department of Homeland Security this week through its “Implementation of Keeping Families Together” program. It enables federal agents to “process for certain noncitizen spouses and stepchildren of U.S. citizens who are present in the United States without admission or parole,” meaning they are in the country illegally, “to request parole in place” status.
Granting a PIP status “will achieve the significant public benefit of promoting the unity and stability of families, increasing the economic prosperity of American communities, strengthening diplomatic relationships with partner countries in the region, reducing strain on limited U.S. government resources, and furthering national security, public safety, and border security objectives,” DHS says.
By doing so, the Biden-Harris administration did “an end-around the law” by ignoring the Constitution, violating the Administrative Procedure Act, and contravening existing federal law, the coalition argues.
They sued in the U.S. District Court Eastern District of Texas Tyler Division and asked the court to grant injunctive relief to prevent DHS from implementing it.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and their respective heads, are named as defendants.
“Federal statute prohibits illegal aliens from obtaining most immigration benefits, such as permanent resident status, without first leaving the country and being admitted to re-enter and reside in the country lawfully,” the coalition said. Instead of following current federal law, the program “effectively provides a new pathway to a green card and eventual citizenship,” the coalition added, because it allows “more than 1.3 million aliens who are unlawfully present in the United States to circumvent the processes established by Congress to apply for permanent residency – an opportunity that is not legally available to those present in the country unlawfully.”
Similar to the more than a dozen parole programs DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas created to expand illegal entry into the country, critics argue, the PIP is also only supposed to be used “for urgent humanitarian reasons or significant public benefit,” not en masse, according to federal law the brief cites.
“Under Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, the federal government is actively working to turn the United States into a nation without borders and a country without laws. I will not let this happen,” Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said. “Biden’s new parole workaround unilaterally grants the opportunity for citizenship to unvetted aliens whose first act on American soil was to break our laws. This violates the Constitution and actively worsens the illegal immigration disaster that is hurting Texas and our country.”
Joining Texas are the attorneys general of Idaho, Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, North Dakota, Ohio, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee and Wyoming.
Each of the states says they will be “irreparably harmed by the PIP program,” citing estimated costs to taxpayers who fund a range of subsidized services that illegal foreign nationals receive. They include Medicaid, CHIP, TANF, uncompensated healthcare costs, law enforcement costs due to crime, public education, “unemployment, environmental harm and social disorder due to illegal immigration.”
“As the number of paroled and illegal aliens” in these states increase, the brief argues, “the number of paroled and illegal aliens receiving” subsidized services will also increase.
The complaint also lists an estimated number of foreign nationals illegally living in each of the plaintiff states who are married to a U.S. citizen and may qualify for the PIP program. Texas has the most of an estimated 204,000; Florida has the second greatest number of 93,000, followed by Georgia’s 34,000, according to Migration Policy Institute data cited.
The next greatest number is 14,000 in Ohio, 12,000 in Tennessee, 9,000 each in Kansas and Missouri, 7,000 each in Alabama and Louisiana, 6,000 each in Arkansas and Iowa, and 4,000 in Idaho. An unknown number are cited for the states of North and South Dakota and Wyoming.
DHS said the process began on Aug. 19 and the “family unity is a bedrock objective of the U.S. immigration system.”
