President Biden vowed to keep "fighting" for illegal immigrants Tuesday after a federal judge blocked his sweeping amnesty plan.
The program, called "Keeping Families Together," would have granted deportation protection, work permits, green cards, and a path to citizenship to half a million illegal migrants married to U.S. citizens.
Biden announced the program in June, on the 12th anniversary of President Obama's unlawful DACA program. Like DACA, Biden's amnesty program shields illegal immigrants from deportation without any action from Congress.
The program was challenged by 16 Republican states who said it would encourage more illegal immigration, to their detriment. Texas attorney general Ken Paxton (R) hailed the temporary block from judge J. Campbell Barker as a victory for the rule of law.
"This is just the first step. We are going to keep fighting for Texas, our country, and the rule of law," Paxton said.
Former Donald Trump adviser Stephen Miller, of America First Legal, led the Republicans' challenge. Miller said the actual number of migrants who stand to benefit from the program is closer to 1 million.
In his defiant response to the court' ruling, Biden fretted that deporting illegal migrants married to Americans would cause "needless" suffering.
"That ruling is wrong," Biden said. "These families should not be needlessly separated. They should be able to stay together, and my Administration will not stop fighting for them."
Biden's pledge to "fight" for illegal immigrants contradicts his party's recent adoption of tough-on-the-border rhetoric ahead of the 2024 presidential election.
Vice president Kamala Harris, the Democrats' presidential candidate, is attempting to coopt Donald Trump's signature policy of building a border wall - after roughly 10 million illegal crossings under Biden and Harris.
In his response to the court's ruling, Biden - who blocked Trump's wall on the first day of the Biden-Harris presidency - pledged to "fight to secure our border and fix our broken immigration system."
Still, Biden lamented that illegal immigrants would be living "in fear" after the court's ruling.
"They’ll be forced to either leave their families in America, or live in the shadows in constant fear of deportation,” he said.
Biden's angry reaction to this commonsense court ruling shows where his party's priorities actually are, despite their recent "border security" messaging.
For Biden, these migrants are future Democratic voters, and it grieves him to see their "path to citizenship" disrupted.
