Eight states have sued the Biden administration for restarting an Obama-era program that allows migrants who illegally crossed the border to petition that their children or relatives be able to join them in the United States.
On Friday, Republican-led states Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Indiana, Missouri, Montana, Oklahoma, and Texas filed a complaint in the U.S. District Court Northern District of Texas over the Biden administration’s reimplementation of the Central American Minors Program. America First Legal, a law firm run by officials from the Trump administration, served as outside counsel to Texas.
“The CAM Program is illegal. The Biden Administration created it without consideration of the effects it will have on the Plaintiff States and the continuing crisis along the Southwest Border,” the complaint states. “The Administration created it without notice-and-comment rulemaking. And it imposes substantial, irreparable harms on the Plaintiff States. This Court should declare unlawful and enjoin the Biden Administration’s unlawful program.”
The program was established in 2014 under President Barack Obama as a refugee and parole program. It was intended to give adults who illegally crossed the border and were released into the U.S. pending removal proceedings in court the ability to request their children or other family members residing in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras be permitted to join them here.
“In short, if an illegal alien from one of those three countries is inside the United States and has so much as a pending application for asylum, they can petition the United States Government to bring their minor children into the United States — despite no explicit authority from Congress to do so,” the complaint states. “And not just the illegal alien’s minor children, but also the in-country parent of a qualifying child, a legal guardian, or a child’s primary caregiver.”
The lawsuit states that the program was not created by Congress, which is supposed to manage immigration levels, and that it violates two statutory authorities in U.S. immigration law for providing benefits to unqualified residents. The lawsuit also alleges that it “facilitates the entry into the United States of illegal aliens’ family members based on the mere existence of an application for speculative benefits.” Most of those requesting their children join them in the U.S. illegally crossed the southern border but were released into the U.S. at the discretion of federal law enforcement officials.
Trump shuttered the program in 2017. President Joe Biden’s administration reinstated it in March 2021 and began accepting new applications last September.
*story by The Washington Examiner
