HOUSTON (CN) — A group of red states began to make their case Thursday, asking a federal judge to do away with a Biden administration program that allows 30,000 people per month from four troubled countries to be paroled into the United States.
With their home nations struggling amid political turmoil, natural disasters, economic crisis and gang violence, people from Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela and Haiti have been traveling to the U.S. in search of better lives like never before: Last fiscal year, for the first time, Border Patrol encounters with people from those four countries exceeded those of nationals from Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras.
President Joe Biden’s Department of Homeland Security over the first two years of his presidency released many of the travelers into the U.S. with notices to appear for deportation proceedings or to report to immigration offices.
America struggles to deport the group due to icy relations with their countries’ governments or dangerous conditions in their homelands, and they cannot be indefinitely detained in immigration prisons.
Desperate for a solution, as Republicans decried the White House’s “open-border policies,” Homeland Security started a parole program for Venezuelans in October. The agency added Nicaraguans, Cubans and Haitians in January. Around 181,000 people have come to the U.S. through the policy.
The initiative required buy-in from Mexico’s government, which is also eager to stop emigrants from crossing its country to get to the U.S.
Mexico agreed to accept the return of those who enter the U.S. without papers instead of going through the parole process. After they are expelled, they must abide by a five-year ban on admission and could be charged with illegal reentry if they return before then.
Under the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, the president has the authority to grant parole on a case-by-case basis for “urgent humanitarian reasons or significant public benefits.”
Both Democratic and Republican administrations have created similar parole pathways for a variety of groups: family of U.S. military members, children from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador, relatives of Filipino World War II veterans and Afghans who helped the U.S. military during the Afghanistan war.
Despite that history, Texas and 20 other Republican-leaning states sued the administration in January, alleging it had overstepped Biden’s parole powers.
Texas claims the parolees who move to the state will increase its costs for education, health care, issuing driver’s licenses and incarcerating immigrants convicted of felonies. It is the only one of the plaintiff states to provide financial data.
But the feds say in court filings the results were swift and dramatic: In the first months of the program, conditional releases of people from these countries dropped 90%, from 2,356 to 245 per day.
To qualify for parole, which allows for a two-year stay in the U.S. and a work permit, immigrants must have a U.S. sponsor who swears under penalty of perjury they will house them, and help them obtain health care, learn English and get a job. The sponsors themselves must file papers to start the application process and undergo extensive background checks along with the applicants.
Seven sponsors intervened as defendants in the case.
One of their attorneys, Monika Langarica of the Center for Immigration Law and Policy, UCLA School of Law, said in opening statements of Thursday’s bench trial that Texas is asking U.S. District Judge Drew Tipton, a Trump appointee, to be the first judge in history to block such a parole plan.
“Five administrations have enacted over 120 parole programs over seven decades. … None have been found to be unlawful by a court and none have been overridden by Congress,” she said.
Eric Sype, one of the intervenors and the only witness in the trial, described befriending a man named Oldryn, and Oldryn’s family, in 2014 while working for a nonprofit in Nicaragua. Over the years they have become so close they call each other “chosen family.”
Sype said Oldryn, whose last name has been withheld, lives in a coastal community that was devastated by tropical storms that swept away his in-laws’ home. Then in 2018, an uprising against authoritarian President Daniel Ortega led to blockades across the country’s highways.
“All economic activity stopped. His family said there was no work for a long time,” Sype testified.
The Covid-19 pandemic also stifled Nicaragua's economy. And with Oldryn struggling to find full-time construction work, Sype said Oldryn asked him for advice on ways to support his wife and two young children.
Sype said he and his parents decided to sponsor Oldryn as a form of reciprocity.
“They supported me when I first left home and traveled out of country. They’ve welcomed me into their home again and again. And we see this as a chance to welcome him into our family and home during a time of need for him,” Sype explained.
Oldryn arrived in the U.S. via San Francisco International Airport on Aug. 12, where he was vetted by a U.S. Customs and Border Protection agent and granted parole.
Oldryn is now living at Sype’s parents’ home in Cashmere, Washington, and sleeping in Sype’s childhood bedroom. He is waiting on a work permit so he can work on Sype’s cousin’s apple farm, Sype testified.
He said his cousin always has difficulty finding enough labor for his farm, and Oldryn will help meet that need before returning to Nicaragua in August 2025.
Later on Thursday, Gene Hamilton of the America First Legal Foundation started closing arguments for the plaintiff states. The foundation was started by Stephen Miller, who served as a senior adviser to former President Donald Trump and helped craft his anti-immigration policies.
Hamilton accused the Biden administration of creating a “shadow immigration system” under the guise of managing the crisis at the border without analyzing their ability to remove parolees after two years.
He argued Biden does not have the same parole authority presidents had in the past because Congress curtailed it in the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996.
“Under their interpretation there is no limiting principle to how they can use this statute,” Hamilton said. “Any time they want, for any nation, they can start one of these programs and parole as many people as they want.”
Trying to establish standing, Texas assistant attorney general Ryan Walters also argued in closings the administration violated the Administrative Procedure Act by starting the policy without first letting the public weigh in through a notice-and-comment period.
Tipton indicated it may take more than that. "I find that remarkable you said every time you sue for notice-and-comment you automatically get standing," he said.
He is presiding over the trial in Victoria, Texas. The proceedings are being livestreamed at the Houston federal courthouse.
The judge has a history of thwarting Biden’s immigration policies.
Trial is expected to end Friday and Tipton said he will issue a ruling several weeks later.
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