Arkansas’s Republican Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders has joined 19 other GOP-led states to file an emergency lawsuit to stop Democrat President Joe Biden’s migrant parole program.
The Biden administration’s new program would allow up to 360,000 migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Venezuela, and Nicaragua to enter the United States each year.
Federal law allows the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to offer parole on a case-by-case basis, and only for humanitarian reasons or public benefit.
But the new program unlawfully allows individuals who do not meet that bar to receive the benefit, according to Reuters.
America First Legal, led by former Trump advisor Stephen Miller, spearheaded the lawsuit.
The suit says: “The Department of Homeland Security (DHS or Department), under the false pretense of preventing aliens from unlawfully crossing the border between the ports of entry, has effectively created a new visa program—without the formalities of legislation from Congress—by announcing that it will permit up to 360,000 aliens annually from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela to be ‘paroled’ into the United States for two years or longer and with eligibility for employment authorization.
“The Department’s parole power is exceptionally limited, having been curtailed by Congress multiple times, and can be used ‘only on a case-by-case basis for urgent humanitarian reasons or significant public benefit.’
“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 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 suit says.
“In establishing this unlawful program, the Department did not engage in notice-and-comment rulemaking under the Administrative Procedure Act, substituting instead its unilateral judgment to bring into the United States hundreds of thousands of aliens who otherwise have no other authority to enter.
“The Plaintiff States—Texas, Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Ohio, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah, West Virginia, and Wyoming—face substantial, irreparable harms from the Department’s abuses of its parole authority, which allow potentially hundreds of thousands of additional aliens to enter each of their already overwhelmed territories.
“The Department does not have the authority to invite more than a third of a million more illegal aliens into the United States annually as it has announced with this program.
“This Court should enjoin, declare unlawful, and set aside the Department’s lawless parole program.”
Miller also issued a statement that blasts the Biden admin as “lawless.”
“Since our inception nearly two years ago, America First Legal has been at the forefront of the legal battle to save America’s borders from complete annihilation at the hands of this lawless administration,” Miller said.
“Just days ago, Biden announced a radical new proposal to accelerate mass migration into the United States by pre-clearing unauthorized foreign aliens for parole into the country, while admitting hundreds of thousands of more illegal aliens at our ports of entry.
“This is pre-amnesty for what would be illegal aliens before they even arrive at our borders.
“In other words, it is the equivalent of DACA for noncitizen aliens living outside our borders who have no right to be here, who will now be flown to the United States with work permits and guaranteed admission for the clear purpose of permanent resettlement.”
“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,” Miller notes.
“So once again, we are proudly joining with Texas, the incredible Attorney General Ken Paxton, and a coalition of nineteen states to file this urgent lawsuit demanding an immediate cessation and halt to Biden’s treacherous scheme to flood our country with even more unauthorized mass migration.
“America First Legal will not relent in defense of our sovereign borders.”
