A federal court has struck down the Biden-Harris administration’s last-ditch effort to parole hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants into the U.S. before President-elect Donald Trump takes office.
On Thursday, U.S. District Court Judge J. Campbell Barker halted an executive order issued by President Joe Biden earlier this year that would have effectively granted amnesty to many of the illegal immigrants his administration has allowed into the country. Barker wrote that Biden does not have “statutory authority” under the U.S. Constitution “to grant parole ‘in place’ to aliens … or to deem parole ‘in place’ as used there to be parole ‘into the United States’…” The judge declared Biden’s executive order “set aside and vacated…”
The order, issued by Biden in June, would have used the “parole in place” program to allow at least 500,000 illegal immigrants to enter the U.S. The order would have also granted amnesty to qualifying illegal immigrants and provided them with a pathway to citizenship, in addition to work visas. Almost immediately, America First Legal (AFL) and a coalition of 16 state attorneys general took legal action to block the order. AFL Founder and President Stephen Miller said at the time, “This is a colossal amnesty and a thunderous attack on American democracy in the form of an imperial edict. With today’s order, Biden is saying the invasion will continue forever, and criminal migrant trespassers will be our new voters and citizens.”
AFL and the states of Texas and Idaho, as well as Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, North Dakota, Ohio, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, and Wyoming argued that the executive order violates sections 1182 and 1255 of Title VIII of the U.S. Code, which deals with immigrants and immigration, and “is arbitrary, capricious, or an abuse of discretion.”
Judge Barker agreed in his ruling Thursday that the executive order is “not in accordance with law” and is “in excess of statutory … authority.” He noted that U.S. immigration law does allow for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to parole illegal immigrants into the U.S. in certain limited circumstances, but it does not allow for a “parole in place” program as described in the executive order, allowing immigrants who have already gained entry into the U.S. illegally to remain there. Barker also observed that immigration law requires immigrants to apply for a visa culminating in long-term permanent residency from outside the U.S., not while already living in the U.S. illegally.
“As the court has rejected the Rule’s reading of parole ‘into the United States,’ it also concludes that the Rule focuses on the wrong thing in identifying ‘significant public benefits’ — the benefits of aliens’ new legal status, rather than their presence in this country,” Barker wrote. “The Rule exceeds statutory authority and is not in accordance with law for this reason as well.”
While the DHS argued that any action taken by the court in vacating the executive order should only vacate problematic parts of the order, Barker explained that the entire order must be vacated because “error” in its “foundational interpretive views does not leave any part of the Rule to be validly implemented.” While Barker has yet to issue a final judgment in the case, he did order that the rule created by Biden’s executive order be vacated.
AFL Executive Director Gene Hamilton said in a statement responding to the court’s ruling, “Since day one, the Biden-Harris Administration has dedicated itself to the decimation of our immigration system and the erasure of our borders. Time and again, the States stood up.” He continued, “And today, the States succeeded in stopping an illegal program that would have provided amnesty to hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens and paved the path for the largest administrative amnesty in American history. We are proud to stand alongside these patriots in defense of our great nation.”
S.A. McCarthy serves as a news writer at The Washington Stand.