(Missouri Independent) – The Biden administration will announce deportation protections for long-term undocumented immigrants married to U.S. citizens and quicker approval of work permits for those in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. President Joe Biden will make the announcement during a White House event to celebrate the 12th anniversary of the DACA program. The initiative, launched during the Obama administration, temporarily protects undocumented children brought into the United States without authorization.
Senior administration officials previewed the new policies to reporters late Monday. The new DACA policy allows recipients who have graduated from an accredited university and have a job offer from a U.S. employer for a highly skilled position to qualify quickly for existing temporary work visas, such as an H-1B visa.
These policies follow Biden’s recent crackdown on immigration, including a partial ban on asylum proceedings at the southern border. Immigration remains a critical issue for voters and Biden’s GOP rival, former President Donald Trump.
Democrats and immigration advocates have long pressed for permanent protections for the nearly 579,000 DACA recipients as they await a decision from the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, which could deem the program unlawful. The legal dispute is likely to reach the Supreme Court. Many immigration policy experts consider DACA outdated because thousands of undocumented people are ineligible due to not being born yet at the time of its implementation. To qualify, an undocumented person must have continuously resided in the U.S. since 2007.
Biden pushed to take action
Americans with undocumented spouses have expressed frustration and pushed for executive action to grant relief for over 1.1 million Americans who fear their undocumented spouses could face deportation. The deportation protections for those married to U.S. citizens are expected to allow roughly 500,000 noncitizen spouses and their children to apply for lawful permanent residence (a green card) under certain requirements.
To qualify, a noncitizen must have resided in the U.S. for 10 years as of June 17, 2024, and be married to a U.S. citizen since that date. The noncitizen spouse must also not be deemed a security threat. The Department of Homeland Security will consider applications, expected to open by the end of summer, on a case-by-case basis.
This move will also affect roughly 50,000 children who are noncitizens and have an immigrant parent married to a U.S. citizen. To qualify, the children must be 21 or younger, and unmarried, and the marriage between the parents must have taken place before the child turned 18.
Under current U.S. immigration law, noncitizens entering the country without authorization are ineligible for permanent legal status and must leave the U.S. to reenter legally through a green card application by their U.S. spouse, a lengthy process that can take years.
“The challenges and uncertainty of this process result in many eligible spouses not applying for permanent residence,” a senior administration official said.
Application info coming
More information on the application and eligibility process will be published in the Federal Register in the coming weeks. The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, which oversees the legal immigration system, has a similar program allowing noncitizens who are immediate family members of U.S. military service members to obtain green cards without leaving the country.
“This announcement utilizes existing authorities to keep families together,” a senior administration official said. “But only Congress can fix our broken immigration system.”
Any immigration reform from Congress is unlikely, with Republicans controlling the House and Democrats controlling the Senate. A bipartisan border security deal fell apart earlier this year, with no pathway to citizenship for DACA recipients or long-term immigrants. The closest Congress came to bipartisan immigration reform was in 2013, when the “Gang of Eight,” made up of four Republican and four Democratic senators, crafted a bill creating a pathway to citizenship for millions of undocumented people. It passed the Senate, but Republican House Speaker John Boehner never brought it to a vote.
