President Joe Biden on Tuesday announced a new effort to provide a path to citizenship to hundreds of thousands of immigrants in the U.S. illegally who are married to U.S. citizens, an election-year move that contrasts sharply with Republican rival Donald Trump’s plan for mass deportations.
At a White House event, Biden criticized Trump for separating migrant families at the U.S.-Mexico border and using incendiary language about immigrants in the U.S. illegally, including comments that they were “poisoning the blood of our country.”
“It’s hard to believe it’s being said, but he’s actually saying these things out loud. And it’s outrageous,” Biden said. “I’m not interested in playing politics with the border or immigration. I’m interested in fixing it.”
The new Biden program will be open to an estimated 500,000 spouses who have lived in the U.S. for at least 10 years as of June 17, officials said on Tuesday. Some 50,000 children under age 21 with a U.S.-citizen parent also will be eligible.
Biden, a Democrat seeking a second term in the Nov. 5 presidential election, took office vowing to reverse many of Trump’s restrictive immigration policies. But faced with record levels of migrant arrests at the U.S.-Mexico border, Biden has toughened his approach.
Earlier this month, Biden barred most migrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border from requesting asylum, a policy that mirrored a similar Trump-era asylum ban and drew criticism from immigration advocates and some Democrats.
The Biden administration also announced guidance to make it easier for DACA recipients to obtain skilled-work visas.
DACA enrollee Javier Quiroz Castro joined Biden at the White House and said the program allowed him to work legally as a nurse in Houston, including during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“It allowed me to live and work and build a family in the only country I have ever known and loved,” he said.
MIXED POLLS
Trump campaign spokesperson Karoline Leavitt called Biden’s new program “amnesty” that would create “another invitation for illegal immigration.” Trump has highlighted crimes committed by immigrants and has repeatedly pledged to deport millions of people if elected.
A little more than half of U.S. voters back deporting all or most immigrants in the U.S. illegally, Reuters/Ipsos polling shows.
At the same time, separate polling by the advocacy group Immigration Hub found, opens new tab 71% of voters in seven election battleground states backed allowing spouses in the U.S. illegally for more than five years to remain.
Rebecca Shi, executive director of the American Business Immigration Coalition, said focus groups conducted by her organization with independent and Republican voters found they supported legal status for spouses.
“It boosts turnout in terms of Latino and base voters, but it also has support with the middle and the right,” she said on a call with reporters on Monday, adding that most people thought the spouses could already legalize.
LIVING IN FEAR
One couple who could potentially benefit from the action was eagerly awaiting more details.
Megan, a social worker from the election battleground state of Wisconsin, met her husband, Juan, two decades ago when she worked with his cousin and uncle at a restaurant during her college summer break.
Juan’s family, from the Mexican state of Michoacan, had come to the U.S. for generations as seasonal workers, with his grandfather participating in a U.S. program for farmworkers. Juan was in the country illegally, but she never thought it would be an issue.
