A Trump-appointed judge has struck down the Biden administration’s new green card program for illegal immigrants married to U.S. citizens.

The Keep Families Together (KFT) program also applied to stepchildren of U.S. citizens. In announcing the program in June, the Biden administration said it would benefit about 500,000 undocumented immigrants.

The Keep Families Together program has been on hiatus since Aug. 26 after Texas and 15 other Republican-led states took their challenge to the Campbell court.

J. Campbell Barker, a federal judge in East Texas, sided with Texas and 15 other states in deeming the program a violation of the Immigration and Naturalization Act. News week requested comments by email from the Department of Homeland Security and the White House on Friday.

Campbell, who was appointed to the federal bench by President Trump in January 2017, wrote that Texas had demonstrated that each illegal stepchild of a U.S. citizen enrolled in Texas schools cost the state more than $10 000 dollars per year.

“Texas has further shown that it will suffer concrete harm from the increased costs of providing education and health care services to this additional foreign population,” Campbell wrote.

“Plaintiffs have thus demonstrated that at least some alien stepchildren in Texas, a very likely result of the rule, would be in Texas and receive a state-funded education that they could not receive without the rule. And the court credits (Texas) as proving that the average funding entitlement from Texas state and local sources for 2024 is $10,107 per student per year of attendance.

Campbell acknowledged that many people were interested in the parole offered by KFT, but he had to acknowledge that the program was illegal.

“The parole in place under the KFT Rule is undoubtedly important to many parties, but its illegality prevents these interests from being considered,” he wrote.

The program grants work permits and protections from deportation to undocumented immigrants married to U.S. citizens and living in the United States for at least 10 years. This also applies to the children of these undocumented immigrants. In addition to protections against deportation, it offers them a path to a green card and citizenship.

Illegal immigrants married to U.S. citizens already have the opportunity to obtain a green card and citizenship through their marriage, but if they entered the United States illegally, they must first leave the United States and there return legally. Many are hesitant to do so, fearing to expose themselves to a sentence of exclusion of three to ten years.

Campbell said he would cancel the program but would not issue an injunction against the Department of Homeland Security.

“The mere fact that a court has found that a defendant committed an act in violation of a law does not justify a general injunction to obey the law and thereby subject the defendant to contempt proceedings,” he wrote.