GOP States Force Undocumented Migrants To Live in Fear: ‘This is Our Home’

An undocumented migrant and his wife are living in fear they could be ripped apart at any time by U.S. immigration authorities.

The couple told Newsweek that those opposing a program offering a path to a Green Card have no real idea what they are against.

Rico and Jessika Ocampo had a glimmer of hope when President Biden’s “Keeping Families Together” initiative kicked in earlier this month, but that was quickly extinguished when Texas and 15 other states with Republican Attorneys General sued to halt it.

“Putting my kids to bed the past couple of days have been difficult, not knowing if I am going to be able to continue doing that,” Rico Ocampo, who moved to the U.S. from Mexico at the age of 2, told Newsweek.

“I think about all the fathers that are in my position as well, whether they have DACA or not, that literally all they want to do is remain with their families, and that’s the argument that we’re making here.”

Lawsuit over program already used by veterans

Biden’s program would allow undocumented migrants married to U.S. citizens to apply for permanent residency from within the U.S., rather than being forced to leave to their home country to wait the process out.

Earlier this week, a judge granted a 14-day pause, or stay, on the program after Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and others argued “parole in place” broke federal law.

“I sincerely believe this is an extremely weak case,” Immigration attorney Matt Cameron told Newsweek. “This program is 72 years old, and it’s been applied since 2007 to military families.

“They’re not going to sue to stop military families from getting it, obviously that would be a PR disaster. This should be a PR disaster,” the attorney, who had worked in immigration law for 18 years added. “This should be something that people, even on the right, are angry about if they know what it is.

“I know they’d be angry if the headline were ‘Biden stops military families from gaining residency’.”

A family desperate to stay together

Rather than military vets, it’s families like the Ocampos who are affected by the legal battle now going on between Republican states and the White House.

The couple met at church, introduced by a mutual friend, over a decade ago. Rico Ocampo had a son already, but the pair now have three boys and live in Las Vegas, Nevada. For him, the U.S. is his home, having spent decades living, working and building a family in the community he knows.

The “Keeping Families Together” program would help undocumented migrants like him, removing a fear of removal by immigration officials while waiting for a Green Card application to be processed.

The current option forces undocumented migrants to return to their home countries to await approval – a process which can mean several years of forced separation from loved ones.

“It’s so important to just stay together. We don’t know any other country,” Jessika Ocampo told Newsweek. “This is our home. This is the place that our boys were born in and are growing up in, they are very well connected with their support system here.”

Lawsuit claims Biden’s program leads to citizenship

Paxton and the others on the lawsuit argue that Biden’s program is unlawful, because federal law states illegal aliens are supposed to leave the country and apply for a visa before they can legally return.

“We have temporarily blocked Biden’s unlawful new ‘parole in place’ program, which would have rewarded over 1 million illegal aliens with the opportunity for citizenship after breaking our country’s laws—and incentivized countless more,” Paxton, who has challenged Biden’s border policies before, said in a statement Tuesday.

“This is just the first step. We are going to keep fighting for Texas, our country, and the rule of law.”

The Attorneys General claim that their states are facing financial pressures from those the program targets, by having to pay out benefits and offer education and medical services, even though many would be ineligible as noncitizens.

Many of those who might qualify work and pay taxes, with the American Immigration Council estimating that undocumented migrants paid $35.1 billion in taxes in 2022.

The lawsuit has presented the program as a pathway to citizenship for hundreds of thousands of migrants, which Cameron said was not possible when many applications are turned down or hit barriers.

“And of course, there is the conspiracy theory about how somehow this is Biden making sure people can vote in November, which is insane,” Cameron added, emphasizing that non-citizens are mostly unable to vote.

How would Keeping Families Together work?

The U.S. immigration system does not offer direct-to-citizenship pathways for immigrants.

Instead, the program would allow those eligible to apply for parole, or protected status, from the United States Citizenship and Immigration Service. Once that is granted, they could then apply for permanent residency. That process can take several months or even years depending on location.

Being a permanent resident, or green card holder, allows the individual to work legally and travel into and out of the U.S. without issue, but it is not citizenship. After three years of being a green card holder, a resident can apply to become a U.S. citizen.

The Keeping Families Together announcement from the White House included strict eligibility criteria, including that applicants must have resided in the U.S. continuously for 10 years and have no criminal history.

Cameron said by branding the program as “Keeping Families Together”, it forced the 16 attorneys general to come out against keeping families together.

Rico and Jessika Ocampo want American citizens who never had to deal with the immigration system to try to understand their situation.

“We care about this country, we care about moving this country forward,” Rico Ocampo said.

“We are family centered. We take our kids trick-or-treating just like every other family, we pick up our kids from school and we ensure that they do their very best to obtain an education and all that really separates us from any other family is legal status.”

Attorneys General ‘should know better’

Cameron, whose practice has dozens of clients potentially eligible for the program, said many were facing an anxious wait similar to the Ocampos.

The attorney told Newsweek that he believed Americans who voiced support for the lawsuit brought by Paxton and others were uninformed about who was affected.

“But the AGS who are bringing this should know better,” he said. “Maybe it’s possible that some of these AGs have never met a single person who’s married to an undocumented person, I’ve met at this point, almost thousands of them.

“I really think that if you went out in the street and any one of these States and told the story of any one of these people, that I even people just talked to today, they would say, well, why can’t that person be a citizen?”

Rico Ocampo felt similarly, saying he believed most U.S. citizens would be horrified at the thought of having to leave loved ones.

“I also can’t help but think about all the Americans that live in all of these states, who decided to put forth this lawsuit, whose hard-earned tax dollars are literally going towards separating families,” Rico Ocampo added.

Cameron said he believed the lawsuit would be quickly overturned and urged those eligible for the program to get their applications in anyway, so that they could be processed when that happens.

Newsweek reached out to Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office for additional comment via email Thursday,

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