EDINBURG, Texas—Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and seven other attorneys general on Friday lodged a lawsuit against President Joe Biden’s administration over its alleged abuse of a refugee program.
If aliens don’t meet the criteria for refugee status, officials will consider them for parole, which DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, a Biden nominee, can grant on a case-by-case basis to let the aliens into the country but is only supposed to be used if the secretary finds “‘compelling reasons in the public interest” in each case.
Aliens can apply for family members to come even if they don’t have legal status, according to the agency’s website.
But Congress hasn’t granted the authority for the government to run such a program, the attorneys general charge.
The program, they said, “is illegal.”
The suit asks the court to stop the program.
The attorneys general of Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Indiana, Missouri, Montana, and Oklahoma joined Paxon in the suit. All are Republicans.
Mayorkas and other officials, and DHS and other agencies, are named as defendants.
The White House, DHS, and the State Department didn’t respond to requests for comment.
“The Biden Administration has sown nothing but disaster for our country through its illegal, unconstitutional immigration policies,” Paxton said in a statement. “Biden’s latest round of flagrant law-breaking includes his Central American Minors Program, which has contributed significantly to many states being forced to take in even more aliens. My fellow attorneys general and I are suing to stop it.”