(NewsNation) — A federal judge in Texas has invalidated the Biden administration’s program aimed at offering a path to citizenship for undocumented spouses of U.S. citizens, citing a lack of authority to create the initiative.
The program allowed undocumented spouses and stepchildren of U.S. citizens to apply for a green card without leaving the United States.
Ashley De Azevedo, the president of American Families United, has a husband who is an undocumented immigrant from Brazil. She called the judge’s decision to strike Biden’s policy down “frustrating.”
“When you meet somebody, you don’t ask them their immigration background or their status or what type of documentation they have,” she said on “NewsNation Now.” “But unfortunately, after we were married, we did consultations with attorneys and found out that the system just doesn’t work the way that Americans think that it does. It’s not like it is in the movies. You don’t automatically get some sort of protection by marrying an American citizen. So we’ve been working for 12 years to get through this broken system, and we are still working at it.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
