By Ted Hesson
WASHINGTON -A U.S. judge in Texas on Thursday ruled against President Joe Biden’s program offering a path to citizenship for certain immigrant spouses of U.S. citizens, a blow that could keep the program blocked through Biden’s final months in office.
U.S. District Judge J. Campbell Barker found the program, which offers a path to citizenship to around 500,000 immigrants who entered the U.S. illegally if they are married to U.S. citizens, exceeded Biden’s executive authority.
The initiative, known as Keeping Families Together, launched in August but was blocked days later by Barker, who left it frozen while he considered a legal challenge brought by Texas and a coalition of U.S. states with Republican attorneys general.
Biden, a Democrat, announced the program in June before dropping out of the presidential race and paving the way for Vice President Kamala Harris to face Republican Donald Trump, an immigration hardliner.
Trump defeated Harris in Tuesday’s election and is expected to launch a wide-ranging immigration crackdown that would likely include rolling back Biden’s initiative for immigrant spouses, which the Trump campaign called a “mass amnesty” that would encourage illegal immigration.
Americans see immigration as the most pressing issue for Trump to address when he takes office in January, and a large majority believe he will order mass deportations of people living in the U.S. illegally, a Reuters/Ipsos poll that closed on Thursday found.
White House spokesperson Angelo Fernandez Hernandez said in a statement on Friday that the Biden administration disagreed with the ruling and was considering next steps.
“As the president has said, America is not a country that tears families apart,” he said.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton lauded the ruling by Barker, a Trump appointee.
“Once again we have stopped the Biden-Harris administration’s radical attempts to destroy America’s borders and undermine the rule of law,” Paxton said.
(Reporting by Ted Hesson in Washington; Editing by Mary, Milliken, Leslie Adler and Bill Berkrot)