Federal judge strikes down Biden ‘parole in place’ policy for undocumented spouses

A federal judge has struck down the Biden administration’s “parole in place” policy, which gave legal status to certain undocumented spouses of U.S. citizens. In his ruling on Thursday, Nov. 7, U.S. District Judge J. Campbell Barker — who was appointed by President-elect Trump during his first term — said Congress has not given the executive branch the authority to implement such a policy.

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Campbell Barker had previously put an administrative hold on the regulation as he considered the lawsuit, which was brought by Texas and 15 other states. 

The policy, which the Biden administration called “Keeping Families Together,” would have applied to spouses who have been living in the country for 10 years, as well as stepchildren. It could have affected between 750,000 and 800,000 people.

In a statement to ABC News, Ashley DeAzevedo, president of American Families United, said, “District Court Judge J. Campbell Barker did not just dismantle the Keeping Families Together program, he shattered the hopes of hundreds of thousands of American families. The Biden-Harris program would have allowed noncitizen spouses and noncitizen stepchildren of U.S. citizens to stay in the country after they’ve contributed to our communities, helped grow our economy, and built lives with their loved ones.

“We urge the Biden-Harris administration to immediately appeal Judge Barker’s ruling, preventing Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and 15 other Republican Attorneys General cruel lawsuit from devastating over 550,000 individuals in mixed-status families. Families like ours deserve better than this blatant attempt to stop a legal program, and we will not stop until the courts rectify this injustice,” DeAzevedo said.