Republican lawsuit to the Biden migrant sponsorship program is rejected by a US court

A federal court in Texas denied a Republican-led states’ lawsuit on Friday for a Biden administration initiative that permits hundreds of thousands of migrants from Venezuela, Haiti, Cuba, and Nicaragua to request emergency entrance into the US.
The 21 states—led by Texas—lacked standing to pursue the 2023 case, according to US District Court Judge Drew Tipton in Victoria, Texas, since they were unable to provide evidence of any harm caused by the “parole” program, which permits up to 30,000 individuals to enter the country each month.

Statistics from the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) show that as of November, almost 234,000 people from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela have entered the US under the program. Immigrants must fly into the US and have a US sponsor in order to be eligible.
In his decision, Tipton said that since the program’s implementation, there has been a significant 44% drop in the number of individuals entering the US unlawfully from the four nations. The complaint argues that DHS did not have the right to implement the program, and the court did not address this point.
Praising the decision, Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas described the parole program as “a key element of our efforts to address the unprecedented level of migration throughout our hemisphere.”
An inquiry into the ruling was not answered by the Republican office of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.
In an effort to deter potential migrants from entering the country illegally, Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden has worked to increase the number of legal entry points into the US in the run-up to the November 5 presidential election.
Republicans have claimed that the parole programs go beyond what is permitted by law, including former President Donald Trump, who is the party’s nominee to challenge Biden.
During Biden’s presidency, an unprecedented number of migrants have been apprehended trying to enter the US illegally from Mexico. Republicans claim that Biden ought to have stuck with Trump’s more stringent policies, but Biden counters that Republicans haven’t funded the border enough or passed laws that would have tightened enforcement.
In their complaint, the states said that the US government’s parole-using power is “exceptionally limited” and that it can only be used in certain circumstances. They argued that since newly arrived migrants raise the expense of public services like law enforcement and emergency medical treatment, they risk irreversible damage.
Trump appointee Tipton said that the program’s impact was negative.
“The court has before it a case in which plaintiffs claim that they have been injured by a program that has actually lowered their out-of-pocket costs,” he said.
Tipton ordered the Biden administration to stop attempting to divert $1.4 billion in funding intended for border wall construction under the Trump administration to other projects on Friday in a separate dispute.
In the case, Tipton supported Texas and Missouri, although he gave the decision a week’s grace period so that an appeal might be filed.
The Texas attorney general, Paxton, said in a statement that Biden’s effort to “illegally defund the border wall” will be stopped by the decision.
Notwithstanding a 2021 Biden decree declaring that “no more American taxpayer dollars” would be utilized for such projects, the Biden government announced in October that it will move forward with some border wall construction using funding from the Trump administration.