Kansas joins Texas-led lawsuit against Biden's parole in place immigration program (2024)

Jason Alatidd, Topeka Capital-Journal

August 26, 2024 at 2:16 PM·4 min read

Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach has joined a Texas-led lawsuit against President Joe Biden's administration over a program protecting undocumented immigrant spouses and stepchildren of American citizens from having to leave the country.

The lawsuit challenges the so-called "parole in place" program, which is intended to keep families together by allowing noncitizen spouses and children to apply for permanent residency without being required to leave the United States, as was previously required.

The Biden administration announced the policy change, formally known as Keeping Families Together, on June 18. It was implemented Aug. 19. The federal lawsuit was filed Friday by 16 states in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas.

What is parole in place?

The executive order allows spouses and nonmarried stepchildren of U.S. citizens to legally remain in the U.S. while waiting on a response to their green card application.

Previously, many noncitizens were required to leave the U.S. while applying for permanent residency. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security described the result as "a prolonged, potentially indefinite, period of separation from their U.S. citizen family members and causing tremendous hardship to all concerned." Biden administration officials said "the challenges and uncertainty of this process result in many eligible spouses not applying for permanent residence."

Now, DHS will consider, on a case-by-case basis, requests to remain in the country while applying for a green card. The agency estimated that about 500,000 noncitizen spouses of American citizens and about 50,000 children of those spouses are eligible.

"These actions will promote family unity and strengthen our economy, providing a significant benefit to the country and helping U.S. citizens and their noncitizen family members stay together," the White House said in a statement.

Kansas alleges irreparable harm

The lawsuit alleges that Kansas will be "irreparably harmed" by the parole in place program.

The lawsuit, citing the Migration Policy Institute, said Kansas has an estimated 9,000 noncitizen spouses married to U.S. citizens who would be eligible to parole in place.

"Kansas spends substantial sums of money providing services to paroled and illegal aliens due to the federal government's abuses of federal law," the lawsuit states. "Those services include education services and emergency healthcare, as well as many other social services. Federal law requires Kansas to include paroled and illegal aliens in those programs and requires Kansas to include paroled aliens in programs such as S-CHIP, Medicaid, and SNAP."

While eligibility for the program is limited to individuals who have been continuously present in the U.S. for at least 10 years, the lawsuit alleges that parole in place "will incentivize increased illegal immigration into" Kansas and further strain limited public resources.

"The program will result in increased crime and drug trafficking in Kansas communities, requiring additional expenditures by Kansas law enforcement," the lawsuit states. "This is because the Program will incentivize at least some aliens to come to Kansas. That means more people in Kansas, at least some proportion of whom will engage in illegal activity and whom law-enforcement officials will inevitably encounter."

More: Kobach leads Kansas to sue Biden administration in North Dakota over Obamacare for Dreamers

More: Why Kris Kobach needs a headhunter to find attorneys for Kansas AG's office

Texas and America First Legal are leading lawsuit

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton's office is leading the lawsuit.

"Under Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, the federal government is actively working to turn the United States into a nation without borders and a country without laws. I will not let this happen," Paxton said in a statement. "Biden's new parole workaround unilaterally grants the opportunity for citizenship to unvetted aliens whose first act on American soil was to break our laws. This violates the Constitution and actively worsens the illegal immigration disaster that is hurting Texas and our country."

Also leading the case is America First Legal, which is led by Stephen Miller, a former immigration adviser to former President Donald Trump.

"This executive amnesty gives over one million illegals legal status, work permits, and a path to voting citizenship," Miller said in a statement. "It is brazenly unlawful, a deadly accelerant to the ruinous border invasion, and we will use every lawful tool to stop it."

More: Biden's immigration order draws mixed response in Texas. Here's what lawmakers are saying.

Jason Alatidd is a Statehouse reporter for The Topeka Capital-Journal. He can be reached by email at jalatidd@gannett.com. Follow him on X@Jason_Alatidd.

This article originally appeared on Topeka Capital-Journal: Kansas joins Texas immigration lawsuit against parole in place program