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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.
The International Brotherhood of Teamsters says workers at seven Amazon facilities will begin a strike Thursday morning in an effort by the union to pressure the e-commerce giant for a labor agreement during a key shopping period.
The Teamsters say the workers, who authorized walkouts in the past few days, are joining the picket line after Amazon ignored a Dec. 15 deadline the union set for contract negotiations. Amazon says it doesn’t expect any impact on its operations during what the union calls the largest strike against the company in U.S. history.
The Teamsters say they represent nearly 10,000 workers at 10 Amazon facilities, a small portion of the 1.5 million people Amazon employs in its warehouses and corporate offices.
Amazon is ranked No. 2 on the Fortune 500 list of the nation’s largest companies.
At a warehouse in the New York City borough of Staten Island, thousands of workers who voted for the Amazon Labor Union in 2022 and have since affiliated with the Teamsters. At the other facilities, employees – including many delivery drivers – have unionized with them by demonstrating majority support but without holding government-administered elections.
The strikes happening Thursday are taking place at an Amazon warehouse in San Francisco and six delivery stations in southern California, New York City, Atlanta and the Chicago suburb of Skokie, Illinois, according to the union’s announcement. Amazon workers at the other facilities are “prepared to join” them, the union said.
“Amazon is pushing its workers closer to the picket line by failing to show them the respect they have earned,” Teamsters General President Sean M. O’Brien said in a statement.
“If your package is delayed during the holidays, you can blame Amazon’s insatiable greed. We gave Amazon a clear deadline to come to the table and do right by our members. They ignored it,” he said.
The Seattle-based online retailer has been seeking to re-do the election that led to the union victory at the warehouse on Staten Island, which the Teamsters now represent. In the process, the company has filed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the National Labor Relations Board.
Meanwhile, Amazon says the delivery drivers, which the Teamsters have organized for more than a year, aren’t its employees. Under its business model, the drivers work for third-party businesses, called Delivery Service Partners, who drop off millions of packages to customers everyday.
“For more than a year now, the Teamsters have continued to intentionally mislead the public – claiming that they represent ‘thousands of Amazon employees and drivers’. They don’t, and this is another attempt to push a false narrative,” Amazon spokesperson Kelly Nantel said in a statement. “The truth is that the Teamsters have actively threatened, intimidated, and attempted to coerce Amazon employees and third-party drivers to join them, which is illegal and is the subject of multiple pending unfair labor practice charges against the union.“
The Teamsters have argued Amazon essentially controls everything the drivers do and should be classified as an employer.
Some U.S. labor regulators have sided with the union in filings made before the NLRB. In September, Amazon boosted pay for the drivers amid the growing pressure.
NEW YORK — The Teamsters union is launching a strike against Amazon at numerous locations across the country, including in Maspeth, Queens.
The Teamsters are calling it the largest strike against Amazon in United States history, and it’s set to begin at 6 a.m. Thursday. In addition to New York City, workers will be joining picket lines in Atlanta, Southern California, San Francisco and Illinois.
In a video announcement released Wednesday night, workers voiced their frustrations.
“Us being strike ready means we’re fed up, and Amazon is clearly ignoring us and we want to be heard,” one worker says in the video.
“It’s really exciting. We’re taking steps for ourselves to win better conditions, better benefits, better wages,” another worker in the video says.
The union says it represents about 10,000 Amazon employees and that Amazon ignored a deadline to come to the table and negotiate. The $2 trillion company doesn’t pay employees enough to make ends meet, the union asserts.
At the height of the holiday season, many are wondering what this means for packages currently in transit.
Teamsters President Sean O’Brien said, “If your package is delayed during the holidays, you can blame Amazon’s insatiable greed.”
Amazon says Teamsters are misleading the public
An Amazon spokesperson says the Teamsters are misleading the public and do not represent any Amazon employees, despite any claims.
“The truth is that the Teamsters have actively threatened, intimidated, and attempted to coerce Amazon employees and third-party drivers to join them, which is illegal and is the subject of multiple pending unfair labor practice charges against the union,” the spokesperson said in a statement.
An Amazon representative says the company doesn’t expect operations to be impacted.
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