
Judge in Texas orders pause on Biden program that offers legal status to spouses of US citizens
CNN
A federal judge in Texas on Monday paused a Biden administration policy that would give spouses of US citizens legal status without having to first leave the country, dealing at least a temporary setback to one of the biggest presidential actions to ease a path to citizenship in years.
A federal judge in Texas on Monday paused a Biden administration policy that would give spouses of US citizens legal status without having to first leave the country, dealing at least a temporary setback to one of the biggest presidential actions to ease a path to citizenship in years. The administrative stay issued by US District Judge J. Campbell Barker comes just days after 16 states, led by Republican attorneys general, challenged the program that could benefit an estimated 500,000 immigrants in the country, plus about 50,000 of their children. Texas, one of the states leading the challenge, claimed in the lawsuit that it has had to pay tens of millions of dollars annually for services such as health care and law enforcement because of immigrants living in the state without legal status. President Joe Biden announced the program in June. The court order, which lasts for two weeks but could be extended, comes one week after the Department of Homeland Security began accepting applications. “The claims are substantial and warrant closer consideration than the court has been able to afford to date,” Barker wrote. Barker was appointed by former President Donald Trump in 2019 as a judge in Tyler, Texas, which lies in the 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals, a favored venue for advocates pushing conservative arguments.

Federal regulators repeatedly granted appeals to remove Camp Mystic’s buildings from their 100-year flood map, loosening oversight as the camp operated and expanded in a dangerous flood plain in the years before rushing waters swept away children and counselors, a review by The Associated Press found.

Two of the most senior figures in the US government — Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the White House chief of staff — have been impersonated in recent weeks using artificial intelligence — a tactic that harnesses a rapidly developing technology that cybersecurity experts say is becoming the “new normal” in terms of cheap and easy scams targeting senior US officials.