Washington (Associated Press) President Joe Biden President Trump is seeking to balance his own policies with a major election-year move to provide relief to hundreds of thousands of immigrants who do not have legal status in the United States. Aggressive Enforcement at the Southern Border Earlier this month, he infuriated his supporters and many Democrats.
The White House said Tuesday that the Biden administration will Allow certain spouses of U.S. citizens Many immigrants are not legally eligible to apply for permanent residency and therefore citizenship, and administration officials say the move could affect more than 500,000 immigrants.
To qualify, immigrants must have lived in the United States for 10 years as of Monday and be married to a U.S. citizen. If a qualified immigrant’s application is approved, he or she can apply for a green card within three years and obtain a temporary work permit, avoiding deportation during that time.
About 50,000 noncitizen children of parents married to U.S. citizens could also be eligible for the same process, according to a senior administration official who briefed reporters on the proposal on condition of anonymity. There are no requirements on how long the couples have been married, and they won’t be eligible after Monday, meaning any immigrants who reach their 10th anniversary after Monday will no longer be eligible for the program, the officials said.
Government officials said they expect the application process to open by the end of the summer, but the application fee has not yet been determined.
Biden will discuss his plan in a speech on Tuesday. Events at the White HouseIt also marks the 12th anniversary of the introduction of Deferred Action for Young Americans, a popular Obama-era policy that gave young immigrants exemptions from deportation and temporary work permits.
White House officials privately encouraged House Democrats, who are in recess this week, to return to Washington to attend the announcement.
Democratic presidents also have certain DACA recipients It would make it easier for young people and other immigrants to obtain traditional work visas, giving eligible immigrants greater protections than the work permits offered by DACA, which currently faces legal challenges and is closed to new applicants.
The powers Biden is exercising for spouses in his Tuesday announcement are not new: Andrea Flores, a policy adviser in the Obama and Biden administrations who is now vice president of the immigration advocacy group FWD.us, said the policy expands the powers Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama gave to grant “parole” to military families.
The parole process allows eligible immigrants a path to permanent U.S. residency without having to leave the country, removing a common barrier for people without legal status but who are married to Americans. Flores said the process “fulfills President Biden’s promise from Day One in office to protect undocumented immigrants and their American families.”
People who are married illegally to U.S. citizens must leave the country for years to gain legal status. Claudia Zuniga of Houston had lived in the U.S. since 2007, but after marrying in 2017, she married a man who traveled to Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, to buy time until he could legally return home.
Zuniga, 35, said her family’s life “changed 180 degrees” when her husband emigrated to Mexico, and that reuniting with him would be “a dream come true.”
“My husband is with me so I can focus on the well-being of my children,” she said.
Tuesday’s announcement comes two weeks after Biden announces sweeping crackdown It effectively halted asylum applications from people arriving at officially designated ports of entry at the U.S.-Mexico border. sued the Biden administration Commenting on the directive, a senior government official on Monday said the order had reduced contact at the border between the ports.
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Associated Press writers Stephen Groves in Washington and Valerie Gonzalez in McAllen, Texas, contributed to this report.
