U.S. refunding application fees for Biden immigration program for spouses of citizens

The U.S. government will issue refunds to tens of thousands of unauthorized immigrants married to American citizens who applied for a Biden administration program that was struck down in federal court, according to internal government documents obtained by CBS News.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, or USCIS, plans to refund the $580 application fee that roughly 94,000 people paid in hopes of benefiting from the Biden administration policy, dubbed Keeping Families Together. The refunds amount to about $55 million, the documents show.

Announced in June by President Biden, the initiative offered an estimated half a million unauthorized immigrants a chance to get temporary legal status and a streamlined path to permanent residency, if they were married to U.S. citizens and had lived in the U.S. for at least 10 years without committing serious crimes. But a federal judge halted the policy almost immediately after it took effect in late August, agreeing with Republican-led states that argued the program flouted U.S. immigration law.