Judge maintains Biden’s humanitarian parole program for migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Venezuela and Nicaragua

Joe Biden has scored a legal victory. A federal court has left one of Biden’s administration’s central immigration policies. Friday’s ruling from a district judge means the U.S. government will be able to continue to provide temporary humanitarian permits. Under the program — formally known as the Processes for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans (CHNV) — up to 30,000 nationals from these countries can temporarily stay in the United States if they have a U.S. sponsor. The measure had been attacked in court by the Texas state government, which claimed that Washington had opened the border and sparked a crisis.

Judge Drew Tipton ruled that neither Texas — nor the other 20 Republican states that backed the lawsuit — proved the damage that the Biden policy had allegedly caused in their territories. Tipton — who was appointed by former U.S. president Donald Trump — added that the ruling was not a verdict on the legality of the program, but was rather based on Texas’ failure to justify the grounds for the lawsuit.

Last summer, the federal government scored another legal victory when the Supreme Court rejected a Republican-led challenge to a long-blocked Biden administration policy that prioritizes the deportation of immigrants who are deemed to pose the greatest risk to public safety or were picked up at the border. Louisiana and Texas had argued that federal immigration law requires authorities to detain and deport even those who pose little or no risk.

The latest lawsuit was filed in January by a conservative coalition led by Texas prosecutor Ken Paxton. He argued that the arrival of immigrants across the U.S.-Mexico border had forced the state administration to invest millions of dollars in health, education and public security services. It is likely that Texas or another state in the coalition will appeal Friday’s decision to an Appeals Court.

“Today’s decision is a victory for the 1.5 million people who have jumped at the opportunity to sponsor loved ones under this program,” said Monika Langarica, senior staff attorney at the Center for Immigration Law and Policy at UCLA School of Law, which was among the intervenors in the case in support of the administration. “The CHNV parole program confers immeasurable benefits to people, families, and communities across the country,” she said, adding that the ruling is “a critical repudiation of Texas’s attempt to hold immigration policy hostage for the entire country.”

The Biden administration launched the humanitarian parole program at the end of 2022. Since then, some 357,000 migrants from the four nations have entered the United States. The largest group arrived from Haiti, with 138,000 people entering the states thanks to the CHNV program. It is followed by Venezuela (86,000), Cuba (74,000) and Nicaragua (58,000). Record high numbers of people have fled these countries, which are ruled by autocrats and in the grips of severe economic crises. The battered diplomatic relations between Washington and these nations has made it difficult for the United States to deport citizens from these nations back home. In October last year, the United States announced that it was resuming mass deportations to Caracas, despite the fact that there is no Venezuelan consular network in the United States.

To apply for temporary humanitarian parole, individuals must fill out an online form in the CBP One application from their home countries. To be valid, applicants must have a sponsor in the United States, who may be a family member or someone who is willing to give them a job. If the permit is authorized, applicants must pay for their flight and have a two-year permit, which may be renewed, allowing them to extend their stay.

The Department of Homeland Security, which is in charge of border management, has also used this program to allow citizens from countries at war to enter the United States. Thanks to this program, around 80,000 Afghans fleeing the return of the Taliban, and more than 100,000 Ukrainians escaping the Russian invasion, have been able to enter the country.

Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get more English-language news coverage from EL PAÍS USA Edition