President Joe Biden‘s policy granting legal status to some spouses of U.S. citizens who entered the country illegally has been struck down by a federal judge appointed by President-elect Donald Trump.
Biden announced his “Keeping Families Together” initiative in June. The policy would have allowed around half a million spouses and stepchildren of U.S. citizens to apply for permanent residency without being forced to leave the country. Applicants were required to have no disqualifying criminal history and pose no threat to public safety, national security or border security.
Trump, who was elected to a second term with a decisive election win over Vice President Kamala Harris earlier this week, has promised strict immigration policies upon his return to the White House. The president-elect has vowed to implement the largest mass deportation of undocumented migrants in history, while also suggesting that he may deport some migrants who are in the country legally.
On Thursday, U.S. District Judge J. Campbell Barker, appointed to the bench by Trump in 2019, sided with Texas and more than a dozen other Republican-led states in a lawsuit seeking to strike down the policy. It is unclear whether the Biden administration intends to appeal the ruling, although Trump would likely kill the policy next year if Thursday’s decision were reversed.
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Newsweek reached out to the White House for comment via email on Thursday night.
“Judge J. Campbell Barker did not just dismantle the KFT program, he shattered the hopes of hundreds of thousands of American families,” Ashley DeAzevedo, president of mixed status families advocacy group American Families United, said in a statement.
Trump has provided few details on how he will implement his mass deportation plan or on how much it will cost U.S. taxpayers. During an interview with NBC News on Thursday, the president-elect said that there was “no price tag” for the deportation plan.
According to the American Immigration Council, $315 billion is a “highly conservative estimate” for the cost of Trump’s deportation plan, which may target from 11 million to 14 million people.
The deportation effort may face resistance from the Democratic governors who control three of the four states on the U.S.-Mexico border. A key part of Trump’s plan seems to involve using local law enforcement agencies and National Guard troops, who are activated on the orders of state governors.
While the governors of Republican-controlled states could attempt to deploy their National Guard troops to assist in blue state deportations, such actions would almost certainly be subject to legal challenges and other issues that could make carrying out Trump’s plans difficult.
California Governor Gavin Newsom, who frequently sparred with Trump during his first term, warned the president-elect on Wednesday that he would “uphold the rule of law” in California during Trump’s second term.
Stephen Yale-Loehr, professor of immigration law practice at Cornell University, previously told Newsweek that Democrat-controlled states and cities with “sanctuary policies” may not cooperate with Trump’s orders, which could “prevent mass arrests” and possibly block some deportations.