The Government of President Joe Biden will announce this Tuesday a new program that will allow the regularization of more than half a million migrants living in the country without legal status, officials said in a call with reporters.
According to the criteria of
The decision, which will mainly benefit people married to US citizens, It comes less than five months before a presidential election in which migration management has become a central issue for Americans.
The new immigration relief is one of the most important since the Barack Obama Administration created it in 2012 the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which has allowed more than 800,000 migrants to obtain work permits and protection from deportation.
However, new policies will take months to come into effect and they will grant migrants the opportunity to take only the first step in the process to obtain residence permits in the United States, which can take years.
This is how the benefit will work for migrants married to Americans
The program is based on a legal figure known as “parole”, which It grants those who are already in the United States protection against deportation and makes it possible for them to apply for a work permit.
With this permit, which will be valid for three years, Migrants who entered the country irregularly and are married to U.S. citizens can apply for residency and, eventually, citizenship.
“These people have deep family ties and ties to their community in the United States,” said one of the officials who announced the measure in a call with journalists.
To request this relief, the person must have married a US citizen before June 17, 2024 and have lived in the country for at least 10 years.
At the same time, Children under 21 of those married to Americans who also do not have legal status can also obtain permission.
However, officials noted, migrants who have been deported from the U.S. in the past do not qualify for this protection.
In theory, Undocumented people can obtain residency if they marry an American. However, to do so they must leave the country and go to an embassy, which carries the risk of being banned from entering again for periods of 3 to 10 years, in retaliation for having been in the US without legal status.
This situation, officials acknowledged, has led many families to “live in fear and face deep uncertainty about their future.”
The announced relief allows migrants to apply for residency, also known as a “green card,” being in US territory.
The Government estimates that nearly 500,000 immigrants, in addition to “some 50,000 stepchildren of American citizens,” will be able to benefit from the new regulations.
Authorities will review all applications on a case-by-case basis. Those who receive approval will have three years to apply for permanent residence, a period in which they will be able to stay in the United States and qualify for a work permit of up to three years.
“What we are announcing are potentially simplified processes” to “minimize bureaucracy, minimize the difficulties created by having to leave the country,” explained an official who requested anonymity to journalists before the announcement.
Other benefits for children who arrived in the United States and have not regularized their situation
In addition to this program, the US Government also announced this Tuesday that will seek to “improve” the process by which some of those who arrived in the country as children can apply for work visas and they still have not regularized their situation.
The State Department will create “guides” to provide more clarity and accelerate the issuance of H1B visas for those “dreamers” who have graduated from a US university and have a “job offer” from a US company.
The White House announcements come just over two weeks after Biden imposed a series of restrictions on access to asylum at the border that have been harshly criticized by human rights groups.
The Democrat, who won the presidency with a pro-migrant speech that positioned him as the antithesis of former President Donald Trump, has taken increasingly coercive measures with migration.
This latest immigration relief is interpreted by experts as an attempt to attract Latino voters, decisive in some key states. such as Arizona or Nevada, after having abandoned his campaign promise to offer a path to citizenship to the more than 11 million undocumented migrants.
Republicans, for their part, accuse the president of not doing enough to stop it and a part of the electorate asks him to toughen immigration policy, but the left wing of his party and defenders of migrants protest every time he does so.
While the president is between a rock and a hard place, Trump repeats ad nauseam at his rallies that migrants “are poisoning the blood” of the country, but he competes with Biden for the Hispanic vote.
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