Texas Bar Journal • December 2024

Immigration and Nationality Law

Written by Teresa Coles-Davila and Ross Miller

One theme has come to define immigration law and policy in 2024: greater enforcement and fewer avenues of relief for noncitizens. Demonstrative of this shift is the Biden administration’s enactment of asylum restrictions at the southern border with Mexico. Although the Immigration and Nationality Act¹ allows migrants to seek asylum anywhere on U.S. soil, the administration is finalizing a rule that will effectively bar migrants at the southern border from being granted asylum until the average number of daily unauthorized border crossings drops below 1,500 for 28 consecutive days.²

Likewise, the administration recently announced it will not extend paroles previously granted to Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans.³ Instead, the government has advised the more than half a million parolees composing this group to promptly find alternative paths to status or face removal.

The U.S. Supreme Court closed off paths to relief this year for tens of thousands of noncitizens who were ordered removed in absentia after failing to receive notice of the date and time of their removal hearings before the nation’s immigration courts in their initial charging documents. In rendering its decision inCampos-Chaves v. Garland,⁴ the high court overturned precedent from the majority of circuit courts of appeals that have addressed this issue,⁵ effectively foreclosing noncitizens subject to in absentia orders of removal from ever obtaining lawful status. Campos-Chaves further absolves the government of the consequences of its decades-long failure to provide statutorily compliant charging documents—a departure from the court’s own recent precedent dealing with this issue in the context of eligibility to seek cancellation of removal.⁶

Although the Biden administration announced its Keeping Families Together program this year, which permits certain noncitizen spouses and stepchildren of U.S. citizens who entered the country without inspection to apply for parole in place, the future of the program remains uncertain.⁷ Due to court challenges regarding the legality of the program, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services is currently able to accept applications under the program; however, it is not permitted to adjudicate them.⁸

It is within this climate, that advocates are watching for challenges to the administrative state, in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn its decades-long adherence to Chevron deference, which previously directed courts to defer to an agency’s reasonable interpretation of an ambiguous statute the agency enforces.⁹ Only time will tell whether these challenges will bring relief to an increasing population of noncitizens who currently have no path to legalization.

TERESA COLES-DAVILA is the managing attorney for the Law Offices of Teresa Coles-Davila in San Antonio since 2003 and is certified in immigration and nationality law by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization since 2006. She serves as the immediate past chair of the State Bar of Texas Immigration & Nationality Law Section Council and is a Texas Bar Foundation life fellow.

ROSS MILLER is a shareholder and head of the appeals department at the Gonzalez Olivieri immigration firm in Houston. He serves as treasurer of the State Bar of Texas Immigration & Nationality Law Section. He has argued immigration cases before the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the 2nd, 5th, and 11th circuits and has successfully represented clients before the U.S. Supreme Court. Miller has been a guest speaker at Harvard Law School, for the State Bar of Texas, and the American Immigration Lawyers’ Association.