WASHINGTON—Yesterday, a Texas federal district court blocked the Biden Administration from granting “parole in place” to illegal aliens who have lived in this country for years with their U.S. citizen spouses, and refuse to leave the country to apply for legal status, as required by law. The decision came in a lawsuit by Texas, Kansas, and 14 other states against the new program. The Immigration Reform Law Institute (IRLI) is outside counsel in this case, providing assistance to the Kansas Attorney General’s office.
In their Complaint, the states raised ten claims, including the claims that paroling people who have lived here for years is not paroling them “into” the country, as the parole statute requires; that this programmatic parole program violates the requirement that parole only be given on a “case-by-case” basis; that the parole granted is open-ended, not temporary as envisaged by the statute; and that the program violates the Paperwork Reduction Act.
Today, following a bench trial, the district court permanently enjoined the program, issuing a 74-page ruling explaining the program’s unlawfulness and how it harmed the state plaintiffs.
“It is important that we strike down these bad Biden programs even in the last days of his administration, as this will clear the way for Trump to restore vigorous immigration law enforcement all the more quickly,” said Dale L. Wilcox, executive director and general counsel of IRLI. “As the court noted, Congress tightened parole in 1996 to stop just this sort of abuse, but as usual the Biden Administration ignores laws it disagrees with. We are pleased that the court recognized how this program tried to circumvent the law, and struck it down.”
The case is Texas v. DHS, No. 6:24-cv-00306 (E.D. Tex.).
