HOUSTON — As of Monday, thousands of undocumented immigrants married to U.S. Citizens can apply for the “Parole in Place” program
This program under the Biden Administration is called Keeping Families Together. Qualifying immigrants applying to “Parole in Place” can legalize their status without leaving the country. The program also offers a path to citizenship.
The Latino Civil Rights nonprofit FIEL spent Monday helping people who qualify to apply.
“They are now going to be allowed to ask for parole within the United States so that they can be able to adjust status and not have to ask for a pardon outside of the US to see if they're going to be let back in,” said Executive Director of Fiel, Cesar Espinosa.
“It could be the difference between not having status, living under the shadows, not being able to plan for retirement," he said.
But this comes as FIEL is in a legal battle with Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. Despite the lawsuit, it’s all hands on deck as half of the nonprofit works to help people apply for “Parole in Place” and the other half focuses on the lawsuit that was filed in Harris County last month.
Paxton aims to strip the nonprofit organization of their 501c3 status, shutting it down.
“It was very surprising, because, like I said, we try to help all Houstonians regardless of immigration status. We do housing, we do access to higher ed,” said Espinosa.
The lawsuit claims FIEL violated federal nonprofit rules by allegedly participating in electioneering, claiming FIEL depicted Donald Trump as the "son of the devil" and campaigned against Texas legislation.
“I won't speak for the attorney general, but there's a lot of stuff in there, where they interpret things differently than we do,” said Espinosa.
Attorney General Paxton argues that while the First Amendment guarantees a person’s right to free speech, 501c3 organizations like FIEL must operate for the public benefit and can’t campaign on political matters.
But FIEL wants a court to reject the attorney general’s request. In the meantime, they said their work will not stop.
“We literally have been working, 24/7 not only, the lawsuit, but getting everything ready so we can continue to service our community," Espinosa said.
Espinosa said last week they went to court where a judge did not decide on whether to allow the lawsuit to move forward or grant an emergency injunction and expect to hear something in the coming weeks. KHOU 11 News reached out to AG Ken Paxton's office for comment, but have not received a response.