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Oklahoma AG files brief opposing new immigration process meant to keep families together

Oklahoma Attorey General Gentner Drummond greets lawmakers at the 2024 State of the State address.
Legislative Service Bureau
Oklahoma Attorey General Gentner Drummond greets lawmakers at the 2024 State of the State address.

Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond said in a press release Tuesday that he’s against a new federal immigration process meant to keep families of mixed statuses together. He’s filed an amicus brief against it in a federal court case in Texas.

The Keeping Families Together process is explained by the Department of Homeland Security as a way to allow the spouses of U.S. citizens who are in the country without permission to apply for a temporary legal status while they’re processed for permanent residence.

The step-children of U.S. citizens who are in the country without legal permission can also qualify for what is sometimes called the ‘Parole in Place’.

The program took effect on Aug. 19. In about a week, it was paused because of a federal lawsuit against it.

Texas and 15 other states say in a federal court complaint that DHS officials have created an alternate pathway to citizenship with the new process, undermining Congress and burdening states.

“DHS has announced the creation of a program that effectively provides a new pathway to a green card and eventual citizenship; announcing that it would allow more than 1.3 million aliens who are unlawfully present in the United States—more than 200,000 of whom live in Texas—to circumvent the processes established by Congress to apply for permanent residency,” reads the complaint.

Drummond agrees. He said in a press release that adding the program incentivizes illegal immigration, increases crime in local communities and costs states tax dollars. He joined attorneys general in Indiana, Mississippi, Nebraska and Utah in filing an amicus — or friend of the court — brief stating their position.

"The Biden-Harris administration's ‘Parole-in-Place' rule would greatly exacerbate the nation’s border crisis, which is already creating unprecedented criminal activity in Oklahoma,” Drummond said. “This misguided policy increases costs and administrative burdens for our state when the federal government should be working hard to decrease them.”

Qualifications for the program are narrow. It disqualifies criminals and applies only to people who are married to U.S. citizens, of whom there are about 765,000 without legal immigration status, according to DHS.

Applicants, who must fill out a new form called  Form I-131F, must have been married to a U.S. citizen on or before June 17, 2024, and been in the country illegally for the last decade without committing felonies.

DHS reports that most unauthorized immigrants married to U.S. citizens have lived here for around 20 years. Also, some of the most recent studies by the National Bureau of Economic Research, or NEBR, show that immigrants, here with permission or not, are less prone to crime than their citizen counterparts.

Research shows that that’s been true in the U.S. for the better part of 150 years.

Lionel Ramos covers state government at KOSU. He joined the station in January 2024 after covering race and equity as a Report For America corps member at Oklahoma Watch, a nonprofit investigative newsroom in Oklahoma City.