Judge strikes down Biden plan to protect undocumented immigrant spouses of US citizens

A federal judge has struck down a Biden administration policy that aimed to ease a path to citizenship for some undocumented immigrants who are married to US citizens.

The program, lauded as one of the biggest presidential actions to help immigrant families in years, allowed undocumented spouses and stepchildren of US citizens to apply for a green card, the right to permanent legal residency, without first having to leave the country.

About half a million foreign-born spouses of US citizens were estimated to have been eligible for the Biden administration’s initiative that was announced in June under the banner “Keeping Families Together”. Applications opened on 19 August.

The temporary relief from deportation brought a brief sense of security to those estimated to benefit from the program before Texas-based US district judge Campbell Barker put it on hold just days after applicants filed their paperwork.

Immigration advocates condemned that ruling as “heartbreaking”, saying it could separate mixed-status families for years – or even permanently while their lengthy green card applications are processed.

Then on Thursday, the day after Donald Trump recaptured the White House for the Republicans, Barker ruled that the Biden administration had overstepped its authority by implementing the program and had stretched the legal interpretation of relevant immigration law “past its breaking point”.

The short-lived initiative would have been unlikely to remain in place after Trump took office in January anyway. But its early termination creates greater uncertainty for immigrant families as many are bracing for Trump’s return to the White House.

He has promised a swift and massive crackdown on undocumented people after running on promises of mass deportation and making the US-Mexico border a top election issue for voters, even many hundreds of miles away from the border states of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California.

The president-elect energized his supporters on the campaign trail with a litany of anti-immigrant statements, especially about asylum seekers and thousands crossing the southern border from Mexico, Central and South America, and troubled Caribbean nations such as Haiti and Cuba, including that immigrants were “poisoning the blood” of the nation.

Trump and now vice-president-elect JD Vance repeated racist stories, particularly about Haitian immigrants living in the US legally, and whipped up anxiety among their supporters.

Fears of anti-immigration round-ups, detention and deportation are now rippling through undocumented communities across the US, with the looming threat of families being torn apart and the expulsion of people who have lived law-abiding lives in the US for years, even though the logistics and costs of doing so have not been grappled with by the Trump team.

During his first term, Trump appointed Barker as a judge in Tyler, Texas, which lies in the fifth US circuit court of appeals, a favored venue for advocates pushing conservative arguments.

Barker had placed the immigration initiative on hold after Texas and 15 other states, led by their Republican attorneys general, filed a legal challenge accusing the executive branch of bypassing Congress to help immigrant families for “blatant political purposes”.

Republicans argued the initiative created costs for their states and could draw more migrants to the US.

Noncitizen spouses are already eligible for legal status but often have to apply from their home countries, which can take years.

The Associated Press contributed reporting