A new Biden administration program that would have helped hundreds of thousands of immigrants gain legal residency in the U.S. was temporarily suspended by a federal judge in Texas.
The pause on the Keeping Families Together program was issued by U.S. District Judge J. Campbell Barker in response to a challenge by Texas and 15 other states, led by Republican attorneys general, who filed a federal lawsuit just days after the program began taking applications last week.
The program was designed for certain noncitizen spouses and noncitizen stepchildren of U.S. citizens to request parole in place under existing statutory authority. The program can still accept applications, but it can't approve them.
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The states who filed to stop the program claim it has “unfettered discretion,” meaning it has no limits, and that it would cause irreparable harm and encourage more unauthorized migration.
The U.S. government countered, arguing the harm Texas is claiming is baseless because this program only applies to immigrants who've already been in the country for at least 10 years and were married before the program was announced. Applicants also had to prove they were not a security threat or have a disqualifying criminal history, and pay a $580 submission fee.
A spokesperson for the White House said, “Republican elected officials continue to demonstrate that they are more focused on playing politics than helping American families or fixing our broken immigration system.”
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The temporary suspension of the program will be in place for 14 days but it could be extended.
Meanwhile, the immigrants who would benefit from the program see this latest setback as a disheartening blow — one that could strip them from their families.
One of those people is Foday Turay, who came to the U.S. under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program (DACA) from Sierra Leone when he was just 7 years old. Turay is now a prosecutor with the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office, is married to a U.S. citizen and has a 1-year-old son.
Turay told Scripps News a friend called and told him the news about the judge’s order while he was playing with his son.
“I had to walk away and go to the bathroom and sob, because I’ve been waiting for 20 years to see that light at the end of the tunnel and for it to just be taken away from me like that was really disheartening,” Turay said.
“It felt like a gut-wrenching punch. I felt so broken down. I felt like a dark cloud hovering around me and my family.”
Now, he said his path to citizenship looks bleak.
“I would have to be separated from my family. I would have to be separated from my community, from everything that I’ve known in this country and go to a war-torn country that I haven’t been in in over 20 years and try to learn new things that I don’t even know, and there’s no guarantee that I would be let back in,” Turay explained.
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He said the loss of this program would be devastating to his family, who rely on him for financial security.
“Why is Texas trying to rip us apart from our families?” he asked.
