WASHINGTON -- The Biden administration will defend a key migration program in a Texas federal court starting this week, in a case that could upend operations at the border and curb the executive branch's immigration authorities.
A bench trial set to begin today will focus on a program rolled out in January that allows tens of thousands of migrants from Nicaragua, Cuba, Venezuela and Haiti with willing American sponsors to come to the U.S. legally under an immigration authority known as parole.
The parole program is part of the Biden administration's carrot-and-stick approach to migration policies, which aims to disincentive migrants from crossing the border without authorization and instead encourage them to take advantage of this newly opened lawful migration pathway.
Texas and 20 other Republican-led states have challenged the "carrot" half of that approach in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas, arguing that the administration has exceeded its parole authorities.
If the program is struck down in court, the administration could be forced to manage the border without half of its strategy. And migrants from those four countries, including those with U.S.-based relatives ready to support them, would be left with limited options to migrate legally to the country, advocates said.
"The parole program has served as a lifeline for the people who've been able to access it," Michelle Lapointe, deputy legal director at the National Immigration Law Center, said. "It is, of course, not a substitute for a functional asylum system. But for individuals fleeing islands and instability in Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela, it's been critically important."
Dylan Corbett, the founding executive director of the Hope Border Institute in El Paso, said while the parole program isn't perfect, a ruling against it could increase pressure at the U.S.-Mexico border.
"It's a good thing when there are legal channels for people to migrate," Corbett said. "If these were struck down, all it's going to do is intensify arrivals at the border for people who need to migrate. That will be the downstream effect of an injunction against these programs."
Under the program, each month 30,000 migrants from Haiti, Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela may enter the U.S. and stay for up to two years if they have an American sponsor. The program was announced in January alongside other asylum restrictions that make it harder for migrants who cross the border without authorization to qualify for asylum protections.
More than 181,000 Cuban, Haitian, Venezuelan and Nicaraguan migrants have entered the country under the program through July, according to Customs and Border Protection.
The states argued in court filings that this program did not admit migrants on a "case-by-case" basis as required under parole authorities. 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," the lawsuit states.
Congressional Republicans have raised concerns that the program exceeds legal authority and prioritizes certain migrants over those awaiting visas through other legal immigration channels. House Homeland Security Committee Chair Mark E. Green, R-Tenn., announced Monday that the panel served a subpoena to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to force the department to turn over documents related to the migration parole program.
The Biden administration has contended that the parole programs have reduced the number of migrants caught crossing in between ports of entry.
The government also argues that the court should defer to the Department of Homeland Security's discretion in how best to manage what it described as foreign affairs and national security matters, and that the states do not have the legal right to challenge the program.
The case was assigned to Judge Drew B. Tipton, a Trump appointee who has frequently ruled against the Biden administration in immigration challenges.