President Joe Biden formally announced this Tuesday new measures that will regularize the situation of irregular migrants married to US citizens for more than 10 years, in what represents, according to the US Government, the most far-reaching change in the system. migration in more than a decade. “The steps I am taking today have the overwhelming support of the American people,” declared the Democratic candidate in the November presidential elections, to the applause of more than 200 guests at an event in the East Room of the White House to commemorate the 12th anniversary of the program known as DACA, which protects hundreds of thousands of migrants who arrived as children in this country from deportation.
With the new measures, the US president seeks to show a drastic contrast with his electoral rival and former president, Donald Trump, who has promised mass deportations of migrants in an irregular situation if he returns to the White House, and who has described migrants as “poison.” for the blood of this country.” During the Republican’s mandate, the measures he undertook caused the separation of families of irregular migrants.
“When (Trump) was president,” Biden said, “he separated families and children at the border. And he now proposes ripping husbands and children from their families, homes and communities and placing them in detention camps. They are the things he says; It seems incredible that he said it, but he really says them out loud.” The measures announced this Tuesday, he continued, “show a better path. They do not separate families,” said the American president, surrounded by activists and legislators behind the lectern from which he spoke. The change he introduces, he has assured, “is common sense.”
As announced by the White House, nearly half a million people in this situation could benefit from the changes, which are expected to come into effect at the end of the summer. The changes will also make it easier for people without permits, including young undocumented immigrants known as dreamers (dreamers, who arrived as minors), who have graduated from an American university and have a job offer in their field of study can process a work visa more quickly.
Regularization will also benefit the children under 21 years of age of the spouse in an irregular situation who had also entered the country without papers, if they meet a series of requirements. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) considers that about 50,000 young people could benefit from the new provisions.
In general, foreigners married to Americans have the right to a residence permit, the famous green card. But if they have entered the country irregularly, they must leave and wait up to a decade or more to apply at a U.S. consulate. Something that, in practice, made many in that situation rule out regularization. The new measures allow them to request an exceptional authorization, known in English as “parole in place”, which will allow them to process their papers without having to leave the United States. If their petition is accepted, they will be protected from deportation and will receive a work permit.
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“This new process will allow certain spouses and children to apply for a legal residence permit – a status to which they are already entitled – without having to leave the country,” declared two senior US officials in a telephone conversation with journalists to detail the reform. “These actions will promote family unity and strengthen our economy, providing significant benefit to the country and helping American citizens and their families stay together.”
To qualify for the exceptional authorization, which the DHS will study on a case-by-case basis, immigrants will have to be legally married to a US citizen since at least June 17, 2024, that is, one day before the official announcement of the measures. They must not represent a threat to the national security of the country – in that case, senior officials point out, an investigation would be opened with a view to their possible imprisonment or expulsion – and they must have been living in the United States for at least ten years.
The Department of Homeland Security estimates that immigrants who qualify for the new regulations have been residing in the country for an average of 23 years. It also considers that the majority of those who will benefit come from Mexico or Central America, the most common places of origin of foreigners who entered the United States more than a decade ago.
The residence requirement of at least a decade before June 17 will be strictly observed: those who meet it on later dates will not be able to benefit from the exceptional authorization. DHS officials will also study the authenticity of the marriage bond, which will have to be “legally valid,” according to senior officials.
Those to whom the DHS grants authorization will have a period of three years to process their permanent residence. In the meantime, they will enjoy a work permit and will be protected against the possibility of expulsion. The exact details of the process, including its cost, and how to qualify for it, will be published in a notice in the Federal Register, the official gazette of the Administration, “by the end of summer.”
The White House has described the changes as the “most significant” since the Barack Obama Administration approved the DACA (“Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals”) program of immigration relief measures for tens of thousands of young immigrants in 2012. who arrived irregularly to the United States as children, the so-called dreamers. Precisely, President Joe Biden will make the official announcement of these immigration measures during a ceremony to celebrate the twelfth anniversary of DACA, which has granted protection against deportation and work permits to nearly 800,000 young people during these years despite numerous obstacles from judges. and Republican legislators.
But White House officials recognize that the measure represents a simple patch on an immigration system that needs profound reform to solve all the problems it faces. The US Congress, which has rejected a bipartisan reform proposal on two separate occasions this year, must take decisive action, they insist. “In the end, only Congress can provide permanent stability to the dreamers and their families,” they declared.
The measures that Biden will make official also include steps to allow DACA beneficiaries, among others, to process a work visa more quickly if they have a higher degree from an American university and have received a highly qualified job offer.
The new provisions represent a gesture towards the Latino community just two weeks after Biden proclaimed, also in the White House, the signing of an executive order that limits the right to asylum and allows the border with Mexico to be closed if the illegal crossings detected exceed 2,500 a day for a week, a figure well below what the Border Patrol had been detecting.
That decision received harsh criticism from organizations defending migrant rights and the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, who reminded the president that he had campaigned with the promise of respecting the right to asylum if elected in 2020. At least 46 organizations They have signed a letter rejecting the measure and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has announced that it will take the rule to court. When proclaiming it, Biden had asked his critics for “patience,” pointing out that other rules more favorable to immigration would come. ”Right now, the good disposition of the Americans [hacia los inmigrantes] It is running out. Doing nothing is not an option,” she acknowledged.
The changes that are formalized this Tuesday benefit mixed-status families, with part of the members legally in the United States, and part not. They are a group that for years had lamented that it had been left in a kind of black box of oblivion, without being able to take advantage of other measures to regularize its situation.
The new legal provisions are also among the easiest for the Biden Administration. Public opinion is generally favorable to irregular spouses of US citizens being able to normalize their status. It’s a positive view that contrasts with a widespread hardening of voters’ views on illegal immigration; Fighting it is one of the great priorities for the November elections that respondents declare time and again in the polls.
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