O Biden The administration is considering a proposal to protect migrant spouses of U.S. citizens from deportation and allow them to work legally in the country, according to four officials with knowledge of the discussions.
The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the matter, said no final decision had been made and the form of the policy was unclear. Any such program could also provide some spouses with an easier path to U.S. citizenship.
The proposal comes as President Joe Biden has tried to address political responsibilities in his immigration policy in recent days.
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Last week, he decided to ban asylum for migrants crossing into the United States as part of an effort to strengthen border enforcement, drawing criticism from members of his own party. And now, a measure to protect immigrants living in the country without legal status could help Biden address some of the fierce resistance the order has prompted and bolster support among immigrant advocates, Latino voters and his progressive base.
The program said to be under consideration is known as “parole,” which has been used in the past for other populations, such as military families. It gives immigrants living in the United States without legal permission protection from deportation for a certain period of time and access to a work permit.
Crucially, it also makes it easier for some immigrants to gain new access to a green card and a path to U.S. citizenship.
Generally, illegal entry into the country blocks people’s access to U.S. citizenship in cases where they would otherwise be eligible, such as marriage to a U.S. citizen. The current parole, however, helps some immigrants obtain “legal immigration status” and become eligible to begin the citizenship process.
It’s unclear how many people such a program could affect.
Biden’s executive order last week sparked immediate pushback, with some congressional Democrats comparing it to a Trump-era measure to block migrants from accessing protections in the United States.
“While there are some differences from Trump’s actions, the reality is that he uses the same failed enforcement-only approach, penalizes asylum seekers, and promotes a false narrative that these actions will ‘fix’ the border,” Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D- Washington, said in a statement last week.
Even as he announced a restrictive border policy last week, Biden seemed to indicate he was considering more progressive immigration measures.
“To those who say the measures I’ve taken are too strict, I say to you — be patient,” Biden said Tuesday.
A White House spokesman said Sunday that the administration was considering many options.
“As we have said before, the administration continues to explore a range of policy options and we remain committed to taking action to address our broken immigration system,” the spokesperson said in a statement.
Immigration advocates left White House briefings optimistic about the potential for protections, but also received no indication that the administration would act immediately.
Immigrant advocacy groups like Fwd.US have said that more than 1 million spouses of U.S. citizens are in the country without legal status.
“We are optimistic and working tirelessly to ensure that President Biden takes action to protect the long-term undocumented people in our country, including the approximately 1.1 million undocumented people in the U.S. who are the spouse of a U.S. citizen,” said Andrea Flores, former administration official and vice president of immigration policy at Fwd.US.
“Doing so would fulfill his Day One promise to keep these families together,” she said.
Recent polls show that many Americans, including Democrats and Latinos, favor stricter immigration enforcement and legal paths to citizenship.
The adoption of more restrictive policies came as more cities and states struggled to accommodate record numbers of migrants entering the country, and as a growing number of Republican candidates across the country played on fears that migrants represented a threat to jobs, elections and culture. nation’s identity, even when running races far from the border.
Biden’s shift on immigration was seen by some political strategists as a move to neutralize the issue for white, blue-collar voters in Midwestern swing states such as Michigan and Wisconsin. But the perception that Biden is repeating the Trump administration’s playbook or prioritizing law enforcement over improving legal paths to citizenship risks depressing voting among young Latinos and progressives who drove big Democratic victories. throughout the Southwest.
Many Mexican-American and Latino activists and elected officials in California, Arizona, and Nevada came of age and entered politics through immigrant rights movements.
Charles Franklin, who runs the Marquette Law School Poll, said respondents in Wisconsin polls tend to view former President Donald Trump as better on immigration than Biden by a 2-to-1 ratio, a potentially insurmountable obstacle to the president this year. late in the race.
The best argument for Biden’s tougher enforcement policies, Franklin said, may be to reduce the salience of the issue among independents and swing voters, whose views remain more persuadable but whose answer is an open question.
“The percentage of Democrats who support deportation is surprisingly high, but he has a larger faction within his party that is quite disturbed by his recent actions,” Franklin said. “It’s a divided set of gains and losses for him with these policies.”
The Trump campaign last week made its own play for Latino voters by renaming its “Latinos Trump” effort to “Latinos for Trump.” Campaign officials said the new label was intended to appeal to Latino voters by emphasizing a unifying American identity. But Latino historians and researchers also consider it a strategic move to create a divide among Hispanic voters, some of whom are concerned about the arrival of new migrants.
The American Civil Liberties Union has indicated it will sue the Biden administration over Biden’s move limiting access to asylum at the southern border.
On Sunday, Alejandro Mayorkas, secretary of homeland security, said the administration was prepared to meet any legal challenges to Biden’s executive action.
“I predict they will sue us,” Mayorkas said in an appearance on ABC’s “The Week” about the potential for lawsuits. “We defend the legality of what we did. We maintain the value proposition.”
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