Washington, DC — Yesterday, President Biden issued an important statement denouncing this week’s ruling from a federal judge in Texas to pause the newly launched, “Keeping Families Together” program. President Biden’s statement, available in full online here, captured the stakes and contrast between efforts to keep these American families together versus and in the United States versus the efforts of 16 states, Stephen Miller, and Gene Hamilton of America First Legal to keep these spouses of U.S. citizens vulnerable to separation and deportation.
Of note, Miller and Hamilton are not only driving forces behind the legal challenges to the “Keeping Families Together” program, with Hamilton representing the State of Texas in the lawsuit, but also are architects of sections of Project 2025 and were key forces behind the Trump administration’s family separation efforts that began in 2017 (learn more about the connections between Miller, Hamilton, Project 2025, and family separation/mass deportation here and here).
See below for a reaction from Vanessa Cárdenas of America’s Voice followed by key excerpts of President Biden’s statement.
According to Vanessa Cárdenas, Executive Director of America’s Voice:
“We welcome President Biden’s forceful response to the latest attempt from Stephen Miller, Gene Hamilton and anti-immigrant leaders in Texas and other states to keep American families at risk of separation and deportation.
Programs like ‘Keeping Families Together’ are a meaningful step forward to align our public policy with our core American values. Ensuring that long-settled undocumented spouses of U.S. citizens can remain, legalize their status, and plan their futures together with their families is common sense.
The Biden Administration should continue to stand up for this program and the larger values at stake and draw contrasts with the insidious alternative to make these families vulnerable to separation and deportation.”
President Biden’s statement noted in part:
“America is not a country that tears families apart … These married couples—in which one spouse is a United States citizen and the other has been living in America for 10 years or more—include our neighbors who have been working, raising their families, paying taxes, worshipping with us, and sending their kids to school.
…But without the Keeping Families Together process, spouses of U.S. citizens won’t be able to stay in the U.S. while they obtain the long-term legal status for which they’re already eligible. They’ll be forced to either leave their families in America, or live in the shadows in constant fear of deportation. … [The District Court ruling in Texas] is wrong. These families should not be needlessly separated. They should be able to stay together, and my Administration will not stop fighting for them …
I am not interested in playing politics with the border or immigration; I am interested in solving problems. Nor am I interested in tearing families apart. That is not who we are as Americans.”
