08/27/2024

U.S. Fifth Circuit Judge Halts President Biden's Program for Immigrant Spouses of U.S. Citizens

The program would have given U.S. citizenship to scores of spouses

On Monday, a federal judge in Texas paused a Biden administration policy that would give spouses of U.S. citizens legal status without having to first leave the country, dealing at least a temporary setback to one of the biggest presidential actions to ease a path to citizenship in years.

The administrative stay issued by U.S. District Judge J. Campbell Barker comes just days after 16 states, led by Republican attorneys general, challenged the program that could benefit an estimated 500,000 immigrants in the country, plus about 50,000 of their children. The states accused the administration of bypassing Congress for "blatant political purposes." However, they did not indicate in their challenge if their reasons for opposition were political.

One of the states leading the challenge is Texas, which in the lawsuit claimed the state has had to pay tens of millions of dollars annually from health care to law enforcement because of immigrants living in the state without legal status.

Please select this link to read the complete article from The Associated Press.