Biden offers path to citizenship to spouses of US citizens in election-year gambit

[June 18, 2024]  By Ted Hesson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Joe Biden on Tuesday will announce a program offering a path to citizenship to hundreds of thousands of immigrants in the U.S. illegally who are married to U.S. citizens, a large-scale legalization effort that contrasts sharply with Republican rival Donald Trump's plan for mass deportations.

The program, which will roll out in coming months, 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, senior Biden administration officials said in a call with reporters on Monday. Some 50,000 children under age 21 with a U.S.-citizen parent also will be eligible, they said. The majority of people who would likely benefit are Mexicans, they added.

The program will allow the spouses and children to apply for permanent residence without leaving the U.S., removing a potentially lengthy process and family separation. They could eventually apply for U.S. citizenship.

Biden, a Democrat seeking a second term in the White House, took office vowing to reverse many restrictive immigration policies of Trump, who is also seeking a second term in the White House. But faced with record levels of migrant arrests at the U.S.-Mexico border, Biden has toughened his approach in recent months.

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.

Biden's planned legalization program for spouses of U.S. citizens could reinforce his campaign message that he supports a more humane immigration system and show how he differs from Trump, who has long had a hardline stance on both legal and illegal immigration.

Biden is expected to make the announcement at a White House event on Tuesday tied to the anniversary of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.

The DACA program was launched in 2012 by former President Barack Obama and then-Vice President Biden and currently grants deportation relief and work permits to 528,000 people brought to the U.S. as children.

The Biden administration also is expected on Tuesday to roll out guidance that could make it easier for DACA recipients to obtain skilled-work visas.

U.S. Representative Adriano Espaillat, a Democrat attending Tuesday's event, said the relief for spouses is a way for the administration to balance out recent border enforcement measures.

Trump campaign spokesperson Karoline Leavitt called Biden's new program "amnesty" in a statement and reiterated Trump's deportation pledge, saying he would "restore the rule of law" if reelected.

A little more than half of U.S. voters back deporting all or most immigrants in the U.S. illegally, Reuters/Ipsos polling shows.

Protesters rally at Legislative Plaza near the Tennessee State Capitol building in Nashville, Tennessee, April 4, 2024. REUTERS/Seth Herald

Still, separate polling by the advocacy group Immigration Hub found 71% of voters in seven election battleground states backed allowing spouses in the U.S. 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.

"I assumed maybe you pay a fine or something," she said. "The punishment is just totally disproportionate."

They have two daughters now - ages 4 and 7 - and still have not found a way to fix Juan's status. Reuters is withholding their names because of Megan's concern they could face backlash.

Wisconsin does not issue driver's licenses to immigrants in the U.S. illegally, and the couple worry that Juan, who works as a landscaper, could one day be pulled over and deported.

She said the family likely would uproot and relocate to Mexico if Juan was ever sent back.

"It's just a low-level stress that's always there," she said.

(Reporting by Ted Hesson in Washington; Editing by Mica Rosenberg and Leslie Adler)

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