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Sarah Sanders, Other Republican Governors, Sue Biden Administration Over Migrant Parole Program

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OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.


Arkansas’s Republican Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders has joined 19 other Republican governors to combat a parole program for migrants proposed by President Joe Biden.

The program from the Biden administration allows 360,000 people from Cuba, Haiti, Venezuela, and Nicaragua to come into the United States annually.

Reuters reported: “Led by the office of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, the states filed a complaint in Victoria, Texas federal court claiming the program announced earlier this month violates stringent criteria established by federal immigration law for allowing individuals into the United States who would otherwise not be eligible for entry, known as paroling. Federal law allows the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to offer parole on a case-by-case basis, and only for humanitarian reasons or public benefit, according to the complaint. But the new program unlawfully allows individuals who do not meet that bar to receive the benefit, the states said.”

The announcement by the Biden administration was made alongside the announcement of the expansion of the Title 42 program that would allow people of the same nationalities to be removed quickly.

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“We anticipate this action is going to substantially reduce the number of people attempting to cross our southwest border without going through a legal process,” the president said.

“We can provide humanitarian relief consistent with our values, cut out vicious smuggling organizations, and enforce our laws,” Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said. “Individuals without a legal basis to remain in the United States will be subject to prompt expulsion or removal. Individuals who are provided a safe, orderly, and lawful path to the United States are less likely to risk their lives traversing thousands of miles in the hands of ruthless smugglers, only to arrive at our southern border and face the legal consequences of unlawful entry.”

The lawsuit is focused on limits placed on parole by Congress that says it can be used on a  “case-by-case basis for urgent humanitarian reasons or significant public benefit.”

“The parole program established by the Department fails each of the law’s three limiting factors. It is not case-by-case, is not for urgent humanitarian reasons, and advances no significant public benefit. Instead, it amounts to the creation of a new visa program that allows hundreds of thousands of aliens to enter the United States who otherwise have no basis for doing so. This flouts, rather than follows, the clear limits imposed by Congress,” the lawsuit said.

The lawsuit says that states “face substantial irreparable harms from the Department’s abuse of its parole authority, which allow potentially hundreds of thousands of additional aliens to enter each of their already overwhelmed territories.”

“But the Department’s new ‘parole’ program allows aliens in their home countries to obtain the benefit of being able to obtain advance authorization to enter the United States—despite no other basis in law for them doing so,” the lawsuit said.

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“The parole program established by the Department fails each of the law’s three limiting factors. It is not case-by-case, is not for urgent humanitarian reasons, and advances no significant public benefit.

“Instead, it amounts to the creation of a new visa program that allows hundreds of thousands of aliens to enter the United States who otherwise have no basis for doing so,” it said.

“Every state in America, especially border states like Texas, is being crushed by the impacts of illegal immigration,” Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said to Fox News. “The Biden open borders agenda has created a humanitarian crisis that is increasing crime and violence in our streets, overwhelming local communities, and worsening the opioid crisis. This unlawful amnesty program, which will invite hundreds of thousands of aliens into the U.S. every year, will only make this immigration crisis drastically worse.”

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Former Trump White House official Stephen Miller said that the Biden program is “pre-amnesty for what would be illegal aliens before they even arrive at our border.”

“This is a dramatic escalation in the open borders crusade — not only is Biden freely admitting illegal aliens who arrive at our borders, but he is now going to foreign countries to pre-approve innumerable illegal aliens to flood into our country without any legal basis whatsoever. It is illegal, unconstitutional, and contemptible,” the former Trump official said.

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