A federal judge in Texas temporarily blocked the Biden-Harris plan to grant legal standing to non-citizens married to U.S. citizen spouses. The program will be suspended for the next at least two weeks as the legal challenge moves through the courts.
U.S. District Judge J. Campbell Barker issued an administrative stay following the Biden administration’s implementation of the policy earlier this year. Texas, one of 16 states that challenged the proposal, claimed: “The state had to pay tens and millions of dollars each year from health care to police enforcement due to immigrants living in the State without legal status.”
This week, the federal program announced in June has opened applications for citizenship.
If the policy is allowed to continue, non-citizen spouses of U.S. citizen citizens would have a fast track to citizenship. They could apply for a Green Card and remain in the U.S. as the citizenship process progresses. Before this policy, spouses of U.S. citizens had to wait until the citizenship process was completed in their home country before they could apply for a green card.
Here’s more information on the process.
For the program to be available, applicants must have lived in the U.S. continuously for 10 years or more, have no criminal record that would disqualify them, and married a U.S. citizen on June 17, the day the program was announced.
The application fee is $580. They also have to fill out an extensive form, which includes a detailed explanation of their humanitarian parole request and a list of documents that prove how long they’ve been in the country.
Applicants have three years if they are approved to apply for permanent residence. They can also get a work permit during this time. According to the administration, about 500,000 people and their children could be eligible.
States opposing the new program claim that it bypasses Congress, which is responsible for legislating such issues. They also accuse the Biden-Harris Administration of doing this “blatantly for political reasons.”
