People demonstrate and call out words of encouragement to detainees held inside the Metropolitan Detention Center after marching to decry Trump administration immigration and refugee policies on June 30, 2018 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by David McNew/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — A federal judge late Thursday struck down a White House policy that created a pathway to citizenship for people in the country lacking permanent status who were married to a U.S. citizen.

Eastern District of Texas Judge J. Campbell Barker ruled that the Biden administration overstepped its authority and the program “stretches legal interpretation past its breaking point” of U.S. immigration law. The suit was brought by Texas and other Republican-led states.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s program, called “Keeping Families Together,” would have shielded at least 550,000 immigrant spouses and their children from deportation.

With less than three months before President-elect Donald Trump is sworn into office, it’s unlikely the incoming administration will defend the program, and Trump has vowed to carry out mass deportations.

In a Thursday interview with NBC News, Trump said “there is no price tag” when it comes to mass deportations and that his administration will have “no choice” but to carry them out.

“We obviously have to make the border strong and powerful and, and we have to — at the same time, we want people to come into our country,” he said to NBC. “And you know, I’m not somebody that says, ‘No, you can’t come in.’ We want people to come in.”

Enacting mass deportations would be a costly undertaking that would require congressional approval, which could be easier if Trump is granted GOP control of Congress. Republicans are inching towards control of both chambers.  

As the former president is set to enter a second term in January, he has vowed to immediately begin carrying out mass deportations and ending programs that have granted temporary protections for immigrants such as humanitarian parole.

Trump has criticized the Biden policy that was struck down Thursday as a “mass amnesty” program.

“Mass amnesty” is a legal term that is considered an official pardon, but the program had certain requirements. The individuals considered for citizenship had to have been married to a U.S. citizen for at least a decade and undergo an extreme vetting procedure by DHS.

“This is unsustainable and can’t be allowed to continue!” Trump wrote of the program when it was announced in June. “On day one, we will SHUT DOWN THE BORDER and start deporting millions of Biden’s Illegal Criminals.”

The Texas judge, Barker, was appointed during Trump’s first term. The program was already put on hold in August when Texas GOP Attorney General Ken Paxton led a suit against it.

The states that joined the suit are Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, North Dakota, Ohio, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee and Wyoming.

Those states argued that the Biden administration overreached its authority in creating the program and that it would financially harm states if the people qualifying for citizenship were allowed to remain in the country.

The states were represented by America First Legal, an organization established by Trump adviser Stephen Miller — the architect of Trump’s hard-line immigration policies during his first term.

Ashley DeAzevedo, the President of American Families United, which represents U.S. citizens married to people without permanent status, in a statement urged the Biden administration to appeal the case.  

“District Court Judge J. Campbell Barker did not just dismantle the Keeping Families Together program, he shattered the hopes of hundreds of thousands of American families,” she said. “Families like ours deserve better than this blatant attempt to stop a legal program, and we will not stop until the courts rectify this injustice.”

It’s estimated that roughly 500,000 spouses without legal status and their children would have been eligible to apply for a lawful permanent residence — a green card — under certain requirements. About 50,000 children who do not have legal status and have an immigrant parent married to a U.S. citizen would have also been included in that benefit.

The Department of Justice did not respond to States Newsroom’s request for comment.