COURT RULINGS DEAL BLOW TO GOP NATIVISM; COMMUNITIES RALLY AGAINST EXTREME ‘SHOW ME YOUR PAPERS’ LAW: UPDATES FROM TEXAS
Immigration continues to be front and center in Texas, where a GOP-appointed federal judge on Friday dismissed a lawsuit led by corrupt state Attorney General Ken Paxton that sought to block a successful program that allows Americans to sponsor Cuban, Haitian, Nicaraguan, and Venezuelan (CHNV) migrants that meet certain criteria. Judge Drew Tipton, a Trump appointee, found that the coalition of GOP-led states lacked standing to sue, legal organizations said.
In the year since CHNV’s inception, Americans have sponsored more than 350,000 migrants under the program. Not only is this policy helping facilitate family reunification, but research shows it has helped reduce arrivals at the southern border. But in one of the clearest indicators of the political nature of this lawsuit, GOP states didn’t challenge a similar program assisting Ukrainian refugees.
The dismissal is a major victory for the president’s humanitarian parole authority and the “everyday Americans who have sought the freedom to welcome friends, family, and global neighbors through sponsorship in the CHNV program,” said Justice Action Center (JAC) Director Karen Tumlin.
JAC, RAICES, and the Center for Immigration Law and Policy (CILP) at the UCLA School of Law represented a group of seven U.S. citizens who had sponsored or were in the process of sponsoring eligible migrants and wanted to help defend the program in court. Among these intervenors was Paul Zito, a Texas businessman seeking to sponsor a Cuban pastor and his family. The pastor “was being harassed because of his faith and threatened with imprisonment,” Christianity Today reported in August.
