A legal aid group has filed a motion to intervene in a suit against President Joe Biden’s program for undocumented spouses. The program — called Keeping Families Together — is only a week old and allows undocumented people married to U.S. citizens to apply for legal status and a work permit.
Texas and other GOP-led states filed suit asking the court to halt the program entirely — arguing it was enacted improperly and could harm their states financially.
Now, attorneys are asking to be part of the suit in order to argue its merits in court for people like Oscar Silva. He’s married to a U.S. citizen and says his earliest memories are of pre-school in Texas. But he’s undocumented.
“The lawyers will argue this case in court but I wish everyone could see that my wife and I are just like every other married couple you know. We want to be able to live knowing that the life we’re building won’t be taken away from us,” he told reporters on a press call Monday.
Silva says the Keeping Families Together program is an opportunity to finally have that assurance. Silva’s one of several individuals named on a motion to intervene in the Texas case.
Attorney Karen Tumlin, founder and director of the legal aid group Justice Action Center, is one of the attorneys asking to intervene.
“What does that mean? It means that the courts recognize that sometimes a case is brought, and the two parties — whoever filed the lawsuit, and whoever they’re suing — do not adequately represent the interests that are at stake in the case,” she said.
Tumlin and other lawyers filed the motion on behalf of 12 individuals hoping to take part in the program and a legal aid group working with couples.
