U.S. refunding application fees for Biden immigration program for spouses of citizens

The U.S. government will issue refunds to tens of thousands of unauthorized immigrants married to American citizens who applied for a Biden administration program that was struck down in federal court, according to internal government documents obtained by CBS News.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, or USCIS, plans to refund the $580 application fee that roughly 94,000 people paid in hopes of benefiting from the Biden administration policy, dubbed Keeping Families Together. The refunds amount to about $55 million, the documents show.

Announced in June by President Biden, the initiative offered an estimated half a million unauthorized immigrants a chance to get temporary legal status and a streamlined path to permanent residency, if they were married to U.S. citizens and had lived in the U.S. for at least 10 years without committing serious crimes. But a federal judge halted the policy almost immediately after it took effect in late August, agreeing with Republican-led states that argued the program flouted U.S. immigration law. 

Even if the initiative had survived the legal challenge mounted by Republican state officials, it still would’ve been in the crosshairs of the incoming Trump administration, which has promised to reverse Biden administration immigration policies and oversee mass deportations. 

The Keeping Families Together policy was designed to help some longstanding unauthorized immigrants, a population progressive activists argued had been ignored amid the Biden administration’s focus on handling the record numbers of migrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border illegally.

While marrying a U.S. citizen generally leads to a green card, American immigration law requires those who entered the country illegally to leave and reenter legally to qualify for permanent residency. Undocumented immigrants, however, can be banned from the U.S. for 10 years upon leaving if they have lived in the country unlawfully for a certain period of time.

The program would have allowed eligible applicants to apply for a green card without having to leave the country, by granting them an immigration classification known as parole that effectively cancels out an illegal entry and provides temporary work permits.

In addition to the spouses of American citizens, the program would have also benefited an estimated 50,000 undocumented stepchildren of U.S. citizens. 

Reached for comment, USCIS confirmed it would close pending applications and issue refunds to applicants.

“The court order vacating the [Keeping Families Together] process has resulted in requestors paying a fee for an immigration benefit request that, through no fault of their own, cannot be considered,” the agency said in a statement, noting it determined the refunds were “in the public interest and consistent with applicable law.”