[ad_1]
President Joe Biden will propose a major election-year bill to provide relief to up to hundreds of thousands of immigrants in the United States illegally, balancing his aggressive border restrictions this month that have angered immigrant rights activists and many Democratic lawmakers.
The White House announced Tuesday that the administration will in the coming months allow some spouses of U.S. citizens who are in the country without legal status to apply for permanent residency and then citizenship, an initiative that senior officials said could affect nearly 500,000 immigrants.
To apply, an applicant must have lived in the U.S. for at least 10 years as of Monday and be married to a U.S. citizen. If their application is approved, the person will have three years to apply for a permanent residency permit and get a temporary work permit without being deported during the process.
About 50,000 noncitizen children whose parents are married to U.S. citizens can also follow the same process, according to senior officials who spoke on condition of anonymity. There is no requirement for how long the couple must have been married, and no one will qualify after Monday. Officials said that means immigrants who have lived in the country for 10 years after June 17, 2024, will not be able to participate in the program.
Members of the government said they expect the application process to open in late summer, but the fees that will apply are still to be determined.
Biden will announce the new plan Tuesday afternoon at a White House event organized to celebrate a directive from former President Barack Obama that provided some young immigrants protection from deportation.
White House officials privately urged House Democrats, who are on recess this week, to return to Washington for the announcement.
Biden is also expected to announce a policy that would make beneficiaries of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program eligible for visas instead of the temporary work authorizations they currently receive, according to two people familiar with the matter. That would provide them with stronger protections than the current DACA permits, which have faced legal challenges and are not accepting new applicants.
The powers Biden has in his announcement Tuesday regarding spouses are not new. Andrea Flores, a former policy adviser to the Obama and Biden administrations and now vice president, said the measure would expand on the authority given by former presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama to allow military families to temporarily remain in the country. FWD websitean immigrant advocacy group.
The temporary residence process allows eligible immigrants to seek permanent residency without leaving the country, removing a common barrier for people who do not have residency permits but are married to an American. Flores noted that this “fulfills Biden’s day one promise to protect undocumented immigrants and their American families.”
Tuesday’s announcement comes two weeks after Biden announced tight controls on the U.S.-Mexico border, which effectively blocked asylum claims for people arriving between officially designated entry points. Immigrant rights groups have sued the administration over the decree, and a senior official said Monday that it reduces encounters for people arriving between entry points.
[ad_2]
Source link
