A Trump-appointed federal judge has blocked Republicans’ efforts to stop President Joe Biden’s migrant parole program.
The Biden policy has allowed up to 30,000 migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela (CHNV) to enter the United States each month and stay for up to two years, according to the Department of Homeland Security’s U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS).
Texas and 20 other Republican-led states sued the administration over the program, but U.S. District Judge Drew Tipton dismissed the case, stating that the plaintiffs failed to show how they were “injured” by the policy.
Over 541,000 migrants have been granted entrance into the United States through the parole procedure, the DCNF reported.
“Plaintiffs … are unable to demonstrate that they have been injured by the Program, and as a result, they lack standing to bring these claims,” Tipton wrote. “In reaching this conclusion, the Court does not address the lawfulness of the Program. The Court may only reach that question after a plaintiff has established that it has standing.”
The Biden administration has given parole to nearly 541,000 migrants seeking entrance into the United States, using internal government figures, court documents, and public reporting.
Republican states filed a lawsuit against the scheme in January 2023, claiming that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is working “under the false pretense of preventing aliens from unlawfully crossing the border between the ports of entry.”
According to USCIS, parole is used to provide temporary entrance to migrants in need of humanitarian aid or who are assessed to be of “significant public benefit.”
“The number of CHNV nationals entering the United States since the Program’s implementation has dramatically decreased by as much as 44 percent,” according to the court’s order on Friday.
