Sixteen Republican state attorneys general filed a lawsuit against the Biden administration in district court Friday, seeking to halt the implementation of a policy that expands amnesty for illegal aliens residing in the United States. The motion states that the Democrats "[have] yet again attempted to create [their] own immigration system," instead of following the Constitution. The policy, which in part grants citizenship to spouses of Americans, started rolling out this week.
via the NYT:
Texas and 15 other Republican-led states sued the Biden administration on Friday seeking to halt a new program that could give legal status to hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants who are married to U.S. citizens.
Filed just days after the program opened for applications, the lawsuit is the latest in a string of legal actions Texas has led challenging federal immigration policies and powers.
The suit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, seeks a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction to immediately suspend the program.
The filing read:
“The Biden-Harris Administration — dissatisfied with the system Congress created, and for blatant political purposes — has yet again attempted to create its own immigration system,” the 67-page court filing said.
“This agency action is nothing less than mass amnesty cloaked in purported executive discretion — a sweeping, last-minute ploy by an administration bent on rewriting immigration laws without Congress,” it said.
It also said that the program ran afoul of the law because it misused so-called parole, an authority exercised by the Homeland Security Department to allow people outside the United States to enter the country for urgent humanitarian reasons, on a case-by-case basis.
The Biden program was, instead, attempting to “to parole aliens en masse,” who were already in the country, the motion said.
“Parole authority is not unbounded,” it added.
The DHS also responded on Friday to the suit:
A spokeswoman for the Homeland Security Department, which is running the program, said that the agency would defend the program in court and continue to process new applications.
White House spokesman Angelo Fernández Hernández said in a statement:
"Republican elected officials continue to demonstrate that they are more focused on playing politics than helping American families or fixing our broken immigration system.
The lawsuit aims to separate American citizens from their spouses and stepchildren who are already eligible for lawful permanent residency and could remain together through this process."
The Biden-Harris amnesty plan, which Biden announced on June 18, as my colleague Nick Arama wrote, would cover around a million illegal immigrants. But as she asked at the time, "By what legal authority does he have to take such action?" It's likely the Supreme Court will have an answer on that in due course, along with other suits, over the administration's failure to keep American citizens safe, making their way through the nation's courts.
This is a breaking story. RedState will bring you more details as they become available.
Editor's Note: This article was edited after publication. We failed to include the list of state attorneys general filing the lawsuit. We regret the error. Here is that information:
The lawsuit was filed by the states of Texas and Idaho along with 14 state attorneys general from Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, North Dakota, Ohio, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee and Wyoming.
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