() – A federal judge this Thursday annulled the Biden Administration’s “parole in place” policy that granted legal status to certain undocumented individuals married to US citizens.
U.S. District Judge J. Campbell Barker had previously placed an administrative stay on the regulation, implemented earlier this year when President Joe Biden was running for re-election, while he considered the lawsuit brought by Texas and 15 other states. The policy protected certain undocumented spouses of U.S. citizens from deportation and allowed them to work legally in the country while seeking citizenship.
In his ruling Thursday on the merits of the case, Barker, appointed by President-elect Donald Trump during his first term, said Congress had not given the executive branch the authority to implement such a policy. He wrote that “history and purpose confirm that defendants’ view” of the relevant immigration law “stretches statutory interpretation beyond its breaking point.”
The case is one of several ongoing legal challenges to Biden administration policies that the incoming Trump administration may decline to defend after the White House changes hands.
Barker rejected a request from individuals who benefited from the program to intervene in the case so they could defend the policy.
The policy would have applied to people who have been living in the United States for 10 years, and used existing legal authority known as “parole in place” that offers protections against deportation. In addition to spouses, the policy would also apply to undocumented stepchildren of U.S. citizens.
As previously reported, it was estimated that the program could directly affect between 750,000 and 800,000 people. That could have made it the federal government’s broadest relief program since the 2012 implementation of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, program, which protects undocumented immigrants brought to the United States as children from deportation. minors.
DACA itself is currently the target of a years-long legal challenge. An appeals court earlier this fall heard arguments over a judge’s ruling that found the DACA program illegal but allowed it to continue for current enrollees while an appeal was resolved.
‘s Kevin Liptak, Lauren Fox, Edward-Isaac Dovere and Priscilla Alvarez contributed to this report
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