Give me your tired and poor and do it illegally. Biden Announces New Path to Citizenship for Hundreds of Thousands of Illegal Immigrant
President Joe Biden is building a fast track to citizenship for about half a million illegal immigrants.
On Tuesday, Biden is set to announce a program to smooth out the speed bumps for illegal immigrants who are married to American citizens so they can apply for residency and then citizenship, according to The Washington Post.
Although current policies allow that to happen, anyone doing so has to leave the country and apply for legal admittance, a barrier Biden is demolishing.
The White House has estimated about 500,000 illegal immigrant spouses and 50,000 illegal immigrant stepchildren of U.S. citizens can apply.
Illegal immigrants have to have been in the country for 10 years as spouses. Stepchildren covered under the program must be under 21.
The administration said illegal immigrants from Mexico are expected to be the major beneficiaries of the program, which gives the eligible three years to apply for residency, the Post reported. After that, they can apply to be citizens in three years, which cuts the time from the usual five-year period.
The White House released a “Fact Sheet” about its plan early Tuesday, describing it as “Keeping Families Together.”
The New York Times noted the program has a political benefit for Biden, who trails former President Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, in numerous election polls.
It said the new program could “help Mr. Biden in battleground states, like Nevada, Arizona and Georgia, each of which has more than 100,000 voters who live in ‘mixed status’ households, according to the American Business Immigration Coalition.”
Biden will celebrate his new policy at a ceremony Tuesday afternoon that highlights the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program created by former President Barack Obama, which courts have since found was an illegal end run of Congress, according to the Post.
The Post also noted that Biden will announce a work-visa program for DACA enrollees who are working in the science and technology fields.
The DACA-linked program, however, will require applicants to leave the country to apply.
Related: Trump Pledges to Arizona Crowd: I’ll Rescind Biden’s Weak Border Executive Order on Day 1
Even before the announcement, the America First Policy Institute denounced it, according to Fox News.
“While these so-called mixed-status families may elicit sympathies, our immigration laws have a process for illegal alien spouses of U.S. citizens to follow to absolve their violations — a process the Biden Administration is ignoring to ease the burden on illegal aliens,” AFPI’s Robert Law said.
“This parole scheme could also be a starting point to ‘parole in place’ even larger, less sympathetic classes of illegal aliens, which would frustrate efforts by a future America First administration to enforce U.S. immigration law and remove illegal aliens from the country,” he said.
In a post on Truth Social, Trump condemned the plan.
“Biden is preparing to give MASS AMNESTY to hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens!” the former president said. “This is unsustainable and can’t be allowed to continue!
“On day one, we will SHUT DOWN THE BORDER and start deporting millions of Biden’s Illegal Criminals. We will once again put AMERICANS First and MAKE AMERICA SAFE AGAIN!”
