A group of attorneys general have filed an amicus brief supporting Texas’ bid for a preliminary injunction of the Biden administration’s so-called Parole-in-Place Policy for undocumented immigrants.
West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey and the rest of the coalition say the policy would allow more than a million illegal immigrants married to U.S. citizens to live in the country as temporary legal residents protected from deportation until they can apply for permanent residency. Those individuals otherwise would be required to leave the country before seeking permanent status. The policy also applies to noncitizen stepchildren of U.S. citizens.
The coalition calls the policy “disastrous” and argues it would impose “significant costs on the states, including hundreds of millions of dollars in new expenses relating to law enforcement, education and healthcare programs.”
“Instead of fixing the country’s illegal immigration problem, the Biden-Harris tag-team is creating more costs for states,” Morrisey said. “This administration caused the unprecedented number of illegal border crossings created by its open-door policy; the Parole-in-Place program is just kicking the can down the road and incentivizing illegal acts.”
“We need common sense immigration reform that adheres to the rule of law.”
In the friend of the court brief, the coalition says states “bear many of the consequences of unlawful immigration.”
“More illegal aliens mean more burdens for states like amici states of West Virginia, Montana, Indiana, Mississippi, Nebraska, Oklahoma and Utah,” the brief, filed October 15, states. “So the federal government should be trying to lessen the costs that illegal immigration produces for states, not increase them. Ultimately, ‘deterring illegal immigration is the best long-term solution to protect states from growing costs for illegal immigration.’
“Yet defendants refuse to acknowledge those realities, both in their policies and their Article III standing arguments. Defendants’ latest move is to rewrite immigration law to allow over a million illegal aliens to remain in the United States and live as temporary legal residents until they can apply for permanent residency. Defendants do all that amid an ongoing immigration crisis that imposes significant costs on the states, including hundreds of millions of dollars in new expenses relating to law enforcement, education, and healthcare programs.
“And defendants decided not to even hear the states out on this issue — foregoing notice-and-comment rulemaking under the APA. As dual sovereigns within our federal system, amici states have a vested interest in ensuring the federal government’s adherence to the rule of law. Indeed, states have ‘quasi sovereign interests in the enforcement of immigration law.’”
The coalition says the administration’s policies reflect “a disregard for both federalism and the harms they are imposing on states.”
“By cutting Congress and the states out of the process, defendants have changed immigration law without any sort of recourse,” the brief states. “Allowing the PIP Program to continue would allow the executive to harm the states with impunity and degrade the states’ status as separate sovereigns. That’s also why limiting the injunction to the state plaintiffs is not enough — all states will continue to suffer harm if some part of the program is allowed to continue. This court should stop the unlawful PIP program by issuing an injunction.”
The coalition is asking the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas not to issue just a limited injunction — an injunction of the policy that applies only within the boundaries of the plaintiff states — but rather, a nationwide injunction because a “geographically limited injunction would be ineffective.”
Joining the amicus brief led by West Virginia and Montana are Indiana, Mississippi, Nebraska, Oklahoma and Utah.
U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas case number 6:24-cv-306