By JUAN A. LOZANO
The Associated Press
HOUSTON During a trial Thursday on the fate of a key portion of President Joe Biden’s immigration policy that allows a limited number of people from Central America and the Caribbean to enter the U.S. on humanitarian grounds, an American sponsoring one of the migrants in the program praised its economic benefits and credited it as a way to reciprocate kindness to a friend in need.
Under the humanitarian parole program, up to 30,000 people are being allowed each month to enter the U.S. from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela.
Texas is leading a lawsuit filed by 21 Republican-leaning states to stop the program, arguing the Biden administration has overreached its authority.
The federal government and immigrant rights groups are defending the program, saying it’s been successful at reducing migration and a humanitarian crisis on the southwest border and has provided a safe pathway to the U.S. for desperate migrants who would otherwise be paying human smugglers and bogging down border agents.
A federal trial on the states’ lawsuit was being presided over by U.S. District Judge Drew Tipton in Victoria, Texas. Tipton, a Donald Trump appointee, has previously ruled against the Biden administration on who to prioritize for deportation.
Migrants paroled into the program have a sponsor who vouches for them financially. Eric Sype, of Oakland, California, sponsored his friend, Oldrys, a 34-year-old man from Nicaragua whose last name has not been released.
In court on Thursday, Sype testified that he helped Oldrys apply for the program, and connected him with housing and a job. He now lives in Sype’s childhood home in Washington state, where Sype’s cousin has offered Oldrys a job on the family’s farm which has always struggled to find enough workers. Sype said his friend Oldrys was struggling to find work and support his family in Nicaragua, a country facing economic struggles from hurricane damage, political uprisings and the pandemic.
“We really see this as an opportunity to welcome Oldrys into our family …. in a time of need for him,” Sype said.
In court documents, Texas and the other states argue that the parole program increases costs associated with crime and incarceration and depresses wages and economies.
In opening arguments against the states and in support of the government policy, lawyer Monika Langarica, of the UCLA Center for Immigration Law and Policy, told the judge that none of that is true. She pointed to Oldrys’ case as an example of how the program can help fill critical labor shortages, boosting the economy.
Langarica said that for over 70 years, immigration law has given presidents the authority to grant such parole.
The UCLA center is one of the groups arguing on behalf of seven people sponsoring migrants, including Sype.
Attorneys for Texas and the U.S. Justice Department, which is representing the federal government in the lawsuit, did not present any witnesses and rested their cases based on evidence previously submitted. Closing arguments in the trial were expected to take up the rest of Thursday and possibly not be finished until Friday.
In court documents, Texas and the other states have called the Biden administration’s program an “extreme example” of not enforcing immigration laws that require it to “grant parole only on a case-by-case basis for significant public benefit or urgent humanitarian reasons.”
While the Republican states’ lawsuit is objecting to the use of humanitarian parole for migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela, it hasn’t raised any concerns for its use to grant entry to tens of thousands of Ukrainians when Russia invaded.
Texas has also argued the parole program causes financial harm because it has to provide services, including detention, educational, social services, and driver’s license programs, to the paroled migrants.
The parole program was started for Venezuelans in fall 2022 and then expanded in January. People taking part must apply online, arrive at an airport and have a financial sponsor in the U.S. If approved, they can stay for two years and get a work permit.
As of the end of July, more than 72,000 Haitians, 63,000 Venezuelans, 41,000 Cubans and 34,000 Nicaraguans had been vetted and authorized to come to the U.S. through the parole program.
Other programs the administration has implemented to reduce illegal immigration have also faced legal challenges.
The trial was being livestreamed from Victoria to a federal courtroom in Houston. Tipton was expected to issue a ruling at a later date.
