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Judge rejects Texas lawsuit against immigration policy central to Biden’s border strategy
A federal judge on Friday dismissed a lawsuit by Republican officials in Texas that sought to shut down a federal program that has allowed hundreds of thousands of migrants to fly to U.S. airports, preserving for now a policy central to the Biden administration’s immigration agenda.
The dispute centered on a Biden administration program that allows up to 30,000 migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela to enter the U.S. each month if they have American financial sponsors. Those permitted to fly to the U.S. under the policy have been granted two-year work permits under an immigration authority known as humanitarian parole that President Biden has used at an unprecedented scale.
The Biden administration has argued the policy discourages would-be migrants from those four crisis-stricken countries from journeying to the U.S.-Mexico border and entering the country illegally. The program was announced in January 2023 in conjunction with a bilateral agreement in which Mexico agreed to accept the return of migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela who crossed into the U.S. illegally.
In its lawsuit, Texas said the program bypassed limits Congress set on legal immigration levels and violated the spirit of the parole authority, which it argues should only be used on a limited basis.
But U.S. District Court Judge Drew Tipton ruled Friday that Texas lacked legal standing to sue over the policy because it had failed to show it had “suffered an injury” due to the program. He dismissed the case without ruling on Texas’ claims that the federal initiative is illegal.
As of Feb. 8, more than 365,000 Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans have arrived under the Biden administration sponsorship policy, according to internal Department of Homeland Security data obtained by CBS News.
Representatives for Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, two vocal Republican critics of Mr. Biden’s immigration policies, did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Texas can appeal Tipton’s order.
The survival of the sponsorship program is a major legal victory for the Biden administration, which has sought to combine legal migration pathways and tighter asylum rules to contain unprecedented levels of migrant crossings along the U.S.-Mexico border, with varying degrees of success.
The White House welcomed Tipton’s decision.
“The district court’s decision is based on the success of this program, which has expanded lawful pathways for nationals from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela who have a sponsor in this country and pass our rigorous vetting process, while dramatically decreasing the number of nationals from those countries crossing our Southwest Border,” White House spokesman Angelo Fernandez Hernandez told CBS News in a statement.
Friday’s ruling was also, in many ways, a surprise outcome. Tipton, an appointee of former President Donald Trump, has previously ruled against other Biden administration immigration rules, including a 2021 memo that narrowed the scope of arrests by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in the U.S. interior. Texas has also been generally successful over the past three years convincing federal district court judges in the state to block Mr. Biden’s signature immigration policies.
But Tipton acknowledged in his opinion that illegal entries along the U.S. southern border by migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela had plunged after the sponsorship program was announced.
Customs and Border Protection statistics indeed show a sharp drop in unlawful border crossings by migrants from Cuba, Haiti and Nicaragua over the past year. Illegal crossings by Venezuelans, however, have fluctuated, sometimes dropping significantly, and at times, spiking, including to a record level late last year. More than 7.7 million Venezuelans have fled the economic collapse and political turmoil in their homeland in recent years, the largest displaced population in the world, according to United Nations figures.
“In conclusion, the Parties agree, and the record reflects, that the number of (Cuban, Haitian, Nicaraguan and Venezuelan) nationals entering the United States has dramatically declined from the date the program commenced,” Tipton wrote in his ruling.
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Wisconsin school shooter was in contact with California man plotting his own attack, court documents say
The shooter who killed a student and teacher at a religious school in Wisconsin brought two guns to the school and was in contact with a man in California whom authorities say was planning to attack a government building, according to authorities and court documents that became public Wednesday.
Police were still investigating why the 15-year-old student at Abundant Life Christian School in Madison shot and killed a fellow student and teacher on Monday before shooting herself, Madison Police Chief Shon Barnes told the Associated Press Wednesday. Two other students who were shot remained in critical condition on Wednesday.
A Southern California judge issued a restraining order Tuesday under California’s gun red flag law against a 20-year-old Carlsbad man. The order requires the man to turn his guns and ammunition into police within 48 hours unless an officer asks for them sooner because he poses an immediate danger to himself and others.
Carlsbad is located just north of San Diego.
According to the order, the man told FBI agents that he had been messaging Natalie Rupnow, the Wisconsin shooter, about attacking a government building with a gun and explosives. The order doesn’t say what building he had targeted or when he planned to launch his attack. It also doesn’t detail his interactions with Rupnow except to state that the man was plotting a mass shooting with her.
CBS’ San Diego affiliate KFMB-TV reported that law enforcement searched the man’s home Tuesday night after the order was signed by the judge.
Police, with the assistance of the FBI, were scouring online records and other resources and speaking with the shooter’s parents and classmates in an attempt to determine a motive for the shooting, Barnes told the AP.
Police don’t know if anyone was targeted in the attack or if the attack had been planned in advance, the chief said. Police said the shooting occurred in a classroom where a study hall was taking place involving students from several grades.
“I do not know if if she planned it that day or if she planned it a week prior,” Barnes said. “To me, bringing a gun to school to hurt people is planning. And so we don’t know what the premeditation is.”
On a Madison city website providing details about the shooting, police disclosed Wednesday that two guns were found at the school, but only one was used in the shooting. A law enforcement source previously told CBS News the weapon used appears to have been a 9 mm pistol.
Barnes told the AP that he did not know how the suspected shooter obtained the guns and he declined to say who purchased them, citing the ongoing investigation.
No decisions have been made about whether Rupnow’s parents might be charged in relation to the shooting, but they have been cooperating, Barnes told the AP.
Abundant Life is a nondenominational Christian school that offers prekindergarten classes through high school. About 420 students attend the institution.
The Dan County Medical Examiner’s Office identified the two people killed Wednesday as 42-year-old Erin West and 14-year-old Rubi Vergara.
An online obituary on a local funeral site stated Vergara was a freshman who leaves behind her parents, one brother, and a large extended family. It described her as “an avid reader” who “loved art, singing and playing keyboard in the family worship band.”
West’s exact position with the school was unclear.
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