United States President Joe Biden has announced executive actions targeted at shielding undocumented immigrants’ spouses and children of US citizens from deportation.
Biden’s actions will allow certain undocumented spouses and children of US citizens who have lived consecutively in the country for at least 10 years to apply for lawful permanent residency without leaving the country.
The action will also provide legal status and protections for about 500,000 American families and roughly 50,000 noncitizen children of immigrants under the age of 21 whose parent is married to a US citizen, a senior administration official said.
Biden announced this at a White House event on Tuesday afternoon marking the 12th anniversary of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, the Obama-era program in 2012 that protected more than 800,000 immigrants brought to the U.S. as children.
He called it a “common sense fix” and “the right thing to do.”
The protections for spouses of citizens come two weeks after Biden announced a separate executive action narrowing access to asylum at the southern border.
“We can both secure the border and provide legal pathways to citizenship,” Biden said. “I’m not interested in playing politics with the border and immigration — I’m interested in fixing it.”
Under current federal law, an undocumented person who enters the United States and marries a US citizen must first request parole before applying for legal residency.
But the vast majority of those who enter illegally and marry must, as a penalty for skirting immigration law, return to their home countries and cannot come back for at least 10 years.
To be eligible for the programme, the person must have lived in the United States for at least 10 years and be legally married to a US citizen, according to a White House fact sheet. The application process will open by the end of the summer.
Lawful permanent residency, commonly known as obtaining a green card, allows immigrants to live and legally work in the United States. Green card holders however, cannot vote in federal US elections.
Biden on Tuesday said he was “not interested in playing politics” on the border – but still took an opportunity to slam his predecessor’s policies.
“When he was president,” Biden said, “he separated families and children at the border. And now he’s proposing to rip spouses and children from their families, homes and communities and place them in detention camps. He’s actually saying these things, it’s hard to believe it’s been said, but he’s actually saying these things out loud.”
The president teased the move last week while acknowledging many immigration activists have not been happy with some of his actions.
“For those who say the steps I’ve taken are too strict, I say to you – be patient,” Biden said. “In the weeks ahead – and I mean the weeks ahead – I will speak to how we can make our immigration system more fair and more just.”
In an interview with CNN, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas lauded Biden’s new executive order.
“It is about family unity. That is an ethic and a value of this country, and we will benefit significantly from it. We will keep families together, families including the undocumented spouses who have contributed so much to this country, in so many different ways,” he said.
“Families belong together – it’s that simple. It’s why President Biden’s actions today (Tuesday) are so important, and it’s also a powerful stark reminder of
Donald Trump’s unforgivable legacy of ripping crying children away from their parents when he put in place his family separation policy,” Biden campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez said in a statement.
Immigration experts note that individuals affected by the change are already eligible for green cards because of their marital status, but they are now able to apply from inside the US.
Previously, individuals had to apply from outside the United States, and if they had been in the country unlawfully, remain outside the US for 10 years.
The change in status could impact up to 550,000 individuals, according to the Migration Policy Institute, and allowing those individuals to seek higher-wage jobs could have sizable economic benefits.
