Last week, a Texas judge approved a pause of the Biden administration's new Keeping Families Together program, which creates a pathway to citizenship for immigrants who are married to United States citizens but don't have permanent legal status.
In response to a legal filing made by Idaho, Texas and 14 other Republican-controlled states, U.S. District Judge J. Campbell Barker of the Eastern District of Texas filed an Aug. 26 order pausing the program, and preventing applications from being approved or processed for two weeks.
"The claims are substantial and warrant closer consideration than the court has been able to afford to date," Barker wrote in the order. He may extend the pause as the case advances.
The lawsuit affects more than 500,000 immigrant spouses who would qualify for the program, along with 50,000 stepchildren of U.S. citizens.
The Keeping Families Together program exercises authority under the Immigration and Nationality Act, which states that an applicant for admission who is in the country without permission and is married to a citizen can remain in the country under "parole in place" status. The applicant must not have a disqualifying criminal history that would make them a threat to national and public safety. They must have been legally married to a U.S. citizen before June 17, 2024, and have been physically present in the U.S. since before that date.
U.S. immigration law is complex. In 1996, Congress passed the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act, which prohibited immigrants living here without permission from adjusting their legal residency status for 10 years if they had been present in the U.S. for more than a year.
The 1996 change requires people to obtain a visa before applying for an adjustment of status to receive a green card, but legal experts say it's difficult for some immigrants to apply, because the green card allotments are equal for each country.
A neighboring country like Mexico has stronger economic and historical ties, and would logically require more green cards in comparison to a European country, says Geoffrey Heeren, director of the Immigration Litigation and Appellate Clinic at the University of Idaho's College of Law.
"It doesn't really make sense to allot the same number of visas to Mexico that we do to Liechtenstein," Heeren says.
The result is an enormous backlog for people coming from nearby countries.
The lawsuit accuses Biden's new Department of Homeland Security program, which began on Aug. 19, of bypassing the current immigration system.
Idaho argues that the parole-in-place program will cost the state "significant" amounts of money as agencies will need to provide services to "paroled and illegal aliens." Idaho lists Medicaid, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) as programs that could be misused.
Programs like SNAP are not available to noncitizens without legal status, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, though after a five-year waiting period SNAP may be available to immigrants who receive parole. Medicaid may be available to immigrants who receive parole status.
Estefania Mondragón is the executive director of the Latina-led nonprofit PODER of Idaho, which focuses on issues of immigration, education, economic mobility and gender in Idaho. The organization hosts workshops on pathways to citizenship and advocates for driver's licenses for undocumented Idahoans.
Mondragón says the claims in the lawsuit are baseless, politically motivated and harm undocumented communities.
"I think it's important to see that immigrants are not a drain on the state," Mondragón says. "Undocumented immigrants actually pay more in taxes than they take from the state."
In the lawsuit, Idaho claims that providing services to immigrants who don't have permanent legal status also puts a strain on other resources, such as education, public safety and medical care. Approved applicants to the new program would be allowed to work in the state, which Idaho claims would drive down wages.
Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador announced that he and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton are leading the lawsuit against what they view as an inappropriate expansion of a program that "is traditionally administered on a case-by-case basis to allow aliens who entered the country without authorization to remain in the United States, specifically for urgent humanitarian reasons or significant public benefit."
"The new interpretation of the Parole in Place program further encourages illegal immigration and imposes undue financial burdens on our states," Labrador stated in a press release last week.
Yet Heeren says many noncitizens contribute significantly to Idaho's economy.
"Immigrants are doing some of the most important work... in Idaho, particularly within the agricultural sector," Heeren says.
According to a University of Idaho report released in February called "The Unauthorized Immigrant Workforce and Idaho's Economy," there are 35,000 unauthorized immigrants in Idaho, with 86% currently working and making up 3% of the state's labor force.
The report also states that most unauthorized immigrants in Idaho pay income, sales and other taxes but don't benefit from the public programs funded by those taxes.
The nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute estimates that Idaho has 4,000 unauthorized immigrants who are married to a U.S. citizen. The think tank also estimates that Washington has 32,000 unauthorized immigrants married to a U.S. citizen, with countries of origin including Mexico, India, the Philippines, China/Hong Kong and Guatemala.
According to Homeland Security, immigrant spouses without permanent legal status have been in the country for 23 years on average. The Migration Policy Institute estimates that 69% of Idaho's unauthorized immigrant population, and 61% of Washington's unauthorized immigrant population have lived in their respective states for a decade or longer.
The new program has the potential to create meaningful change for over half a million unauthorized immigrants in the country, especially those desperate to be "legal" in the eyes of their neighbors and the government, Heeran says.
The U.S. is a place for all people, Mondragón says. Despite the lawsuit, she remains optimistic about the future of the program.
"We're all part of Idaho, and this dangerous rhetoric can really take us back to a place that we don't want to go to," Mondragón says. "There's some uncertainty with what's going to happen ... but I think folks are still interested in applying and getting more information." ♦
