Joe Biden’s administration has announced plans to open a path to citizenship to undocumented spouses of Americans, in a move that could affect more than 500,000 people, according to officials.
The White House announced Tuesday that the government will allow certain spouses of U.S. citizens who do not have legal status to apply for permanent residency and, eventually, citizenship, in the coming months.
To qualify, they must have lived in the United States for at least 10 years and be married to a U.S. citizen, although there is no requirement for how long they must have been spouses.
Spouses eligible to apply for this plan have been in the United States for an average of 23 years, according to the White House.
If an immigrant’s application is approved, they will have three years to apply for a green card and receive a temporary work permit, all while being protected from deportation.
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An estimated 50,000 children who are not citizens but have a parent married to one could also qualify for the same process, senior officials said.
The announcement comes two weeks later president biden unveiled an offensive on the US-Mexico border that limits asylum processing once they arrive to 2,500 per day.
The limit came into effect immediately, as current numbers stand at around 4,000 per day.
The administration faced fierce backlash over the crackdown from advocacy groups and many Democratic politicians, and President Biden’s new initiative is expected to try to find some kind of middle ground and show that he supports a more humane immigration system.
At an event at the White House later today, the president is also expected to establish new regulations that will allow beneficiaries of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program – created by Barack Obama – and other young immigrants to more easily qualify for long-standing programs. work visas.
Key battleground in the upcoming elections
Immigration is a key issue in the upcoming presidential elections.
Sky News Chief Correspondent Stuart Ramsay witnessed the plight of immigrants trying to reach North America on a freight train nicknamed “The Beast” or sometimes the “Death Train.”
At least 200 people tried to board the train in the middle of the night, but shortly into the trip, Mexican immigration agents boarded the train along with armed soldiers and the national guard and pushed their way through the cars trying to persuade people to leave. will get off .
Sky News aboard ‘The Beast’
Despite the difficulties of travel – and the new and brutal interventions of the Mexican authorities – the inexorable advance towards the north continues, Ramsay said.
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Biden’s Republican rival in the next election, Donald Trump, He has previously said he would seek to end automatic citizenship for children born in the United States to immigrants living in the country illegally.
The former president also promised to launch the largest deportation effort in US history, focusing on criminals but aiming to send millions back to their home countries.
In an interview with Time magazine, he said he would also reinstate the Title 42 policy, first introduced during the COVID-19 pandemic, that allowed U.S. border authorities to quickly expel migrants back to Mexico without the ability to request asylum.
Trump campaign spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt called President Biden’s new program “amnesty” in a statement and reiterated Trump’s deportation promise, saying he would “restore the rule of law” if he were re-elected.
Tune in to Sky News’ special program with Yalda Hakim on the migrant crisis tonight at 9pm.
This story originally appeared on News.sky.com read the full story
