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For the second time this month, President Joe Biden has flown solo on immigration policy.
On Tuesday, the president announced his administration would make it easier for unauthorized immigrants who have married U.S. citizens to legalize their status. This follows an action earlier this month that limits access to asylum at the U.S. southern border.
Why We Wrote This
U.S. President Joe Biden faces criticism on immigration from a divided public. Back-to-back executive actions appear designed to thread a needle – to make him be seen as both tough and humane.
The new process announced Tuesday could make about half a million “noncitizen spouses” eligible for legalized status, estimates the Department of Homeland Security. That’s fewer than 5% of the more than 11 million unauthorized immigrants estimated to live in the United States.
“I think it’s historic,” says Cori Alonso-Yoder, a law professor at George Washington University. The White House may be “counting on this being seen as a commonsense fix to a broken immigration system that Congress hasn’t stepped in to make more humane,” she says.
The changes won’t take effect immediately. Additional measures around employment-based visas might land soon.
The Biden administration is using a “carrot-and-stick approach,” says Ms. Alonso-Yoder.
For the second time this month, President Joe Biden has flown solo on immigration policy.
On Tuesday, the president announced his administration would make it easier for unauthorized immigrants who have married U.S. citizens to legalize their status. This follows an action earlier this month that limits access to asylum at the U.S. southern border.
The alternating scorn and praise for these new measures fall largely along ideological lines. Yet as the election looms less than half a year away, the president has signaled a willingness to act – and risk litigation – while lawmakers remain stalemated over deeper reform.
Why We Wrote This
U.S. President Joe Biden faces criticism on immigration from a divided public. Back-to-back executive actions appear designed to thread a needle – to make him be seen as both tough and humane.
“We can both secure the border and provide legal pathways to citizenship,” said President Biden at a White House event Tuesday. Under his administration, illegal crossings at the southern border have soared to historic highs – more than 2 million for each of the past two fiscal years.
The new process makes it easier for certain unauthorized immigrants to earn lawful permanent residence, through their families. Some half a million “noncitizen spouses” could be eligible, estimates the Department of Homeland Security. That’s fewer than 5% of the more than 11 million unauthorized immigrants estimated to live in the United States.
“I think it’s historic,” says Cori Alonso-Yoder, a law professor at George Washington University. The White House may be “counting on this being seen as a commonsense fix to a broken immigration system that Congress hasn’t stepped in to make more humane,” she says.
The changes won’t take effect immediately. Additional measures announced today involve employment-based visas. Here’s what we know so far.
What changes is Biden making?
Unauthorized immigrants who are married to U.S. citizens – and have lived here for at least 10 years – will have an easier time applying to become a lawful permanent resident. That’s another way to say green-card holder. The process is expected to roll out sometime this summer.
Immigrants without a lawful status can already apply for a green card through their U.S. citizen spouse, under current law. However, applying often requires the applicant to leave the U.S. and wait out the process for years abroad – an indefinite separation period from their American family. The new process would offer a permission called “parole in place” as a steppingstone to securing a green card without having to exit the country.
For Marisol, a U.S. citizen in Colorado, and her husband, who crossed into the U.S. illegally two decades ago, eligibility would relieve substantial mental health and financial tolls.
Marisol, an immigrant housing advocate who asked that only her first name be used for privacy, says they’ve pursued an expensive, yearslong process of trying to secure her husband’s green card amid immigration court proceedings. Unable to reenter the U.S. easily if he were to depart now, her husband has sacrificed seeing his family in Guatemala for 17 years. He recently missed the death of his father.
The looming question of his future in the U.S. has also complicated their plans to build a family, says Marisol, who says she’s always wanted children. “If we were to have children right now, and then he gets deported … Am I going to be able to raise a child on my own?”
Those eligible under the new policy need to be approved by the Department of Homeland Security and can receive work authorization for up to three years, along with protection from deportation. Green-card holders can apply for citizenship after five years.
The announcement comes two weeks after the White House limited access to asylum along the southern border. Immigrant rights groups have sued, claiming the policies conflict with the right under U.S. law to seek asylum – even if a migrant entered the country illegally.
The June 4 border action “can be understood as the stick in the Biden administration’s use of this carrot-and-stick approach,” says Ms. Alonso-Yoder.
Has this type of immigration relief been offered before?
Yes. As is often the case in immigration, the new Biden policies aren’t entirely new, but rather are new uses of old tools. Again, an unauthorized immigrant can already try to legalize their status through their American spouse under current law, but the process can lead to family separation.
Parole, a temporary permission to enter the U.S., has been one tool available to presidents since the Cold War. Mr. Biden has used parole more expansively than the Trump administration and has framed it as an orderly alternative to illegal border crossings based on humanitarian need. His administration has allowed in more than a million immigrants under this provision who may have been otherwise unable to enter.
Republican-led states sued to stop a parole process he created for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans, alleging the president had breached the bounds of his authority. A Trump-appointed judge this year threw out that lawsuit based on the plaintiffs’ lack of standing to bring the case.
“Parole in place,” the process used in Tuesday’s announcement, is a different application of parole. It refers to an option for unauthorized immigrants who are already in the country – not seeking entry at an official port. For instance, U.S. military members and veterans have been able to pursue this process to legalize the status of family members at risk of deportation.
Many Americans “incorrectly believe that once you marry a U.S. citizen, you’re just automatically given a green card or automatically given citizenship,” says Theresa Cardinal Brown, senior adviser for immigration and border policy at the Bipartisan Policy Center. “That is absolutely not the case. It is a multistep process.”
While the new policy “won’t cure everything,” she adds, it is a leg up for people who entered without permission and have been living in the U.S. free of criminal records and national security concerns.
The president’s June 18 announcement comes on the heels of the 12th anniversary of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. Currently entangled in federal litigation, DACA offers work permits and deportation protections to people brought to the U.S. illegally as children. Some of these “Dreamers” with U.S. spouses may benefit from the new policy.
What are the politics of this?
It’s unclear how Mr. Biden’s recent actions on immigration will help or hurt him politically. Polling suggests that a growing share of Americans think unauthorized immigrants shouldn’t be allowed to stay in the country, though about 6 in 10 registered voters do support a way for them to stay.
So far, responses to Tuesday’s news fall along typical ideological divides.
The new benefits for unauthorized immigrants, many of whom already qualify, is a welcome step forward, says Jennie Murray, president of the National Immigration Forum, an immigrant advocacy nonprofit. “It’s seeking to take a pragmatic step forward to support folks who have been here and contributing,” says Ms. Murray, adding that the focus on family unity presents a “solution that could bring everyone together.”
Critics of the administration reiterate national security concerns, and what they see as oversteps of the president’s immigration authority.
“This is going to send a message to the whole world: It’s OK to enter this country illegally,” said Tom Homan, a visiting fellow at the Heritage Foundation, on a call with reporters.
“This is nothing but a political ploy. This administration hasn’t done anything in 3 1/2 years” to secure the border, added Mr. Homan, an acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement during the Trump administration.
