Texas, other states ask court to ban immigrant flights

Twenty other states joined Texas on Thursday in a motion asking a U.S. District Court to reconsider its earlier judgment dismissing their case against the Biden administration’s program to fly in migrants with parole status. The program is for people from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela, known collectively as CHNV.

What is this program? The program allows for the Department of Homeland Security to bring in as many as 30,000 people per month on parole from CHNV countries, according to a White House statement. The Department of Homeland Security also provided notice when the program took effect in January 2023.

America First Legal, a nonprofit firm helping to represent Texas in the case, argues that the program allows immigrants from those countries to fly to a destination of their choice in the United States. Upon arrival, the individuals can obtain work permits, food stamps, and welfare benefits—all while residing there indefinitely, the firm argues.

What is the problem these states have with this program? Texas and the twenty other states say that they are being forced to pay for the federal program, and the court acknowledged this in its earlier judgment.

Why did the court originally dismiss the case? The district court dismissed the lawsuit in March because it found that the states did not have standing to sue Homeland Security over the program. It also found that the number of immigrants entering the United States from CHNV countries decreased by more than 40 percent during the first few months of the program.

What are the states arguing in this new filing? Texas argues that the CHNV program has imposed a cost burden on the state, and therefore it has standing to sue the Department of Homeland Security over the program. It accused the court of trying to conduct an improper accounting exercise when it ruled in its earlier decision that the state didn’t have standing to sue. Texas also argues that the court looked at the immigration data incorrectly during the initial months of the CHNV program.

Dig deeper: Read Addie Offereins’ report in Compassion about how evangelicals seek to bring Biblical views to the immigration debate.