President Joe Biden has responded harshly to the court decision that temporarily halts his program to grant legal status to undocumented spouses of US citizens. “This ruling is wrong. These families should not be needlessly separated. They should be able to stay together, and my Administration will not stop fighting for them,” he said in a statement.
A federal judge in Texas on Monday suspended the Keeping Families Together program in response to a lawsuit filed by 16 Republican states that consider the reform, which would regularize half a million migrants, to be illegal.
“These married couples, where one spouse is a U.S. citizen and the other has lived in the United States for 10 years or more, include our neighbors who have been working, raising their families, paying taxes, praying with us, and sending their children to school. They have become our friends, our neighbors, and our coworkers. They are the parents of our children’s best friends. They have become invaluable contributors to our communities. They make us a better country,” Biden said.
In June, the president announced major immigration reform to allow spouses of U.S. citizens who entered the country illegally to access immigration. green card. Just one week after the deadline for submitting applications opened, the judge yesterday suspended the program for 14 renewable weeks. The court decision puts on hold an initiative that could benefit half a million migrants who, having crossed the border illegally, live in the country without any recognized rights.
To access the so-called parole in placebeneficiaries must have lived in the United States for a minimum of 10 years and have been married to a U.S. citizen before June 18, when Biden introduced the program. In addition, they cannot pose a national threat or have a criminal record.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton led a lawsuit joined by 15 other Republican states to block the program, claiming it is unconstitutional because it was approved without Congressional authorization. The attorney general denounced that the government’s plan has “obvious political purposes” and that it “will encourage illegal immigration and irreparably harm the plaintiff states.” Something that Biden denied today. “Nothing I did changed the requirements that people must meet to adjust their status under immigration law. All I did was make it possible for these long-term residents to file paperwork here, along with their families,” he said.
Spouses of US citizens have the right to reside in the United States, but if they entered illegally, they must leave the country and apply for it from outside the national territory after a minimum period of 10 years. “Without the process, they will be forced to leave their families in the United States or live in the shadows with the constant fear of being deported,” Biden added. The prospect of spending a decade separated from their families has caused many of the migrants to live in the country without having regularized residency. The program would also grant legal status to some 50,000 children under 21 years of age, children of the migrants who benefit.
On Monday, the same day the program was temporarily suspended, several organizations defending the rights of migrants filed a judicial petition to request that those affected be heard.
“We filed our motion to intervene to demand that the court understand the lives affected by the order just issued,” said Harold Solis, co-legal director of Make the Road New York. “We hope the court will quickly rule in our favor so that our clients’ perspectives are finally considered, as the unity and stability of their family is at stake. We will continue to fight for as long as it takes to ensure that the Keeping Families Together process remains intact.”
For her part, the founder and director of the Justice Action Center, Karen Tumlin, denounced that the judicial paralysis is an extreme measure that, by law, should only be taken in the most urgent situations,” and criticized that “this case does not comply with this. Stopping a process for which Texas has not been able to provide even a shred of evidence that it would harm the state is disconcerting. This is heartbreaking for our clients and the thousands of couples who hope to benefit from this process and be able to live without fear of their families being separated.”
