Texas: The United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas has issued a 14 days-stay order to Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on temporarily halting a new immigration programme from the Biden administration that officials say could protect hundreds of thousands of undocumented spouses of US citizens from deportation.
The District Court’s administrative stay order does not affect any applications that were approved before the administrative stay order was issued.
On August 19, DHS implemented Keeping Families Together, a process for certain noncitizen spouses and noncitizen stepchildren of U.S. citizens to request parole in place under existing statutory authority. However, the program was sued to be halted by the Republican attorneys general of Texas and fifteen other states, which resulted in the judge’s temporary block.
Under the program, undocumented spouses of US citizens who can prove they have lived in the US continuously for at least 10 years and meet a number of other standards will be granted a type of legal relief known as “parole in place.”
If granted parole, and if otherwise eligible, these noncitizens may apply for adjustment of status to that of a lawful permanent resident without being required to leave the United States and be processed by a US consulate overseas.
DHS estimates that 500,000 noncitizen spouses of US citizens could be eligible to access Keeping Families Together; on average, these noncitizens have resided in the United States for 23 years. In addition, approximately 50,000 noncitizen stepchildren of U.S. citizens are estimated to be eligible to seek parole under Keeping Families Together.