Federal Judge Tells Undocumented Spouses Of US Citizens To GTFO
Tearing families apart is the American Way.
A federal judge in Texas has frozen a Biden administration program that prevented deportation of undocumented spouses married to US citizens and offered them a path to a green card and eventual citizenship. US District Judge J. Campbell Barker agreed with Texas and 15 other red-state attorneys general that the executive action exceeded Biden’s authority and amounted to rewriting immigration law without Congress.
Biden announced the “Keeping Families Together” program in June, and it actually went into effect just a week ago, on August 19, when rules for the program were published in the Federal Register and the Homeland Security Department began taking applications.
As the Washington Post explains (gift link), Barker imposed a 14-day pause on new approvals for applicants to the program, which could be extended, and almost certainly will be, although the government will be allowed to continue to take new applications for now as hearings on the case proceed.
Barker, a Trump appointee naturally, wrote in his order that “The claims are substantial and warrant closer consideration than the court has been able to afford to date,” which is court-speak for telling the parties that he’s only getting started and the freeze on new approvals will be extended through at least the middle of October while the parties submit briefs. That means Baker could issue his next decision in the case, potentially restricting the program even further, right before the election.
As the Post notes, the case was carefully venue-shopped, getting filed in
the Eastern District of Texas, part of the conservative-leaning 5th Circuit, which has become the most popular judicial district for Biden opponents seeking to block Democratic programs.
Republican opponents of the program are crying that it amounts to “amnesty” for evil criminal lawbreakers whose very existence in the USA means we are no longer a nation of laws, which is why we must elect a convicted felon to make sure the right people are punished, for the misdemeanor crime of crossing the border without papers or the civil offense of overstaying a visa.
Supporters of the program point out that we aren’t exactly talking about the sort of hardened criminals who might win the Republican presidential nominee here. To qualify at all, applicants must have been in the US for 10 years and married to a US citizen for that time, as well as not having a criminal record or any of the other stuff that would disqualify them for a green card. They also must pay a $580 application fee, explain why they deserve humanitarian parole, and provide a long list of documents showing that they’ve been in the US for the required 10 years.
The program could have helped as many as 500,000 undocumented spouses of citizens, many of whom are parents of children who are also citizens thanks to the stupid 14th Amendment, which Republicans all agree needs to be repealed. Under current law, the only option for pursuing residency these folks have involves leaving the US for 10 years and then applying for a spousal visa, with no guarantee that they would be readmitted.
The lawsuit against Biden was filed by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and pursued with the help of America First Legal, the anti-freedom group founded by Trump immigration Gruppenführer Steven Miller, who would likely become Homeland Security head if Trump somehow returns to the White House.
Karen Tumlin, the founder and director of the immigrant rights group Justice Action Center, called the decision “baffling” and said there’s no basis for freezing the program, because “Texas has not been able to provide an iota of evidence that it would harm the state.” But what about protecting the rule of law and stopping an invasion of people who have lived here without incident for over a decade, huh?
The stupid will continue, through the election and the next president’s term.
PREVIOUSLY!
[WaPo (gift link) / Immigration Impact / AP / Order in Texas V. US Department of Homeland Security]
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What happened to their idea that couples must stay together for the good of society and Jesus?
Note to all non-commenters on this thread and similar threads, present and future:
Can we PLEASE stop referring to it as "packing the court"? Nomenclature is important. Branding is important. That phrase is the "defunding the police" of the judiciary.
Let's call it "expanding" the court, or even "right-sizing" the court, although I hate that expression almost as much. Or if you have a better name for it, by all means suggest it.
"Packing" the court makes it sound like cheating, like it's a bad thing. It's not a bad thing. It's a long overdue adjustment to address the growth in our litigiousness and society overall.