How Biden’s latest action protects immigrant spouses of US citizens from deportation – The Mercury News

Andrea Castillo | Los Angeles Times (TNS)

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden announced executive actions Tuesday aimed at shielding from deportation hundreds of thousands of immigrants who lack lawful status.

One of Biden’s actions will protect immigrant spouses of U.S. citizens who have lived consecutively in the country for at least a decade. The move allows those immigrants to quickly access a pathway to U.S. citizenship to which they are entitled through marriage.

Biden made the announcement at a White House event Tuesday afternoon marking the 12th anniversary of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, the Obama-era program that protected more than 800,000 immigrants brought to the U.S. as children. He called it a “common sense fix” and “the right thing to do.”

The protections for spouses of citizens come two weeks after Biden announced a separate executive action narrowing access to asylum at the southern border.

“We can both secure the border and provide legal pathways to citizenship,” Biden said. “I’m not interested in playing politics with the border and immigration — I’m interested in fixing it.”

With the election five months away, the president is attempting to appeal to a wide range of voters. The asylum rule was a move to the right that could help him win support from moderates, while the latest announcement appeals to the left, which was angered by the asylum restriction. Polls have shown many voters are concerned about immigration as the number of people crossing the Mexico border has swelled. Former President Donald Trump has made criticism of Biden’s immigration policy a cornerstone of his campaign to win back the White House.

How will the program for immigrant spouses work?

The administration will use a program known as “parole in place,” which allows people to work legally and adjust their immigration status without having to leave the country.

Currently, immigrants who enter the country lawfully and marry U.S. citizens can obtain green cards that make them legal residents. But the vast majority those who enter illegally and marry must, as a penalty for skirting immigration law, return to their home countries and cannot come back for years, often at least a decade.

Many such immigrants have instead opted to stay in the U.S. without lawful status and continue to risk deportation.

Parole in place allows the government to disregard the illegal entry, allowing people to more seamlessly continue the process to become legal residents.

How many people could be protected?

Administration officials said the action will protect about 500,000 immigrant spouses of U.S. citizens, and about 50,000 immigrant youth with a U.S. citizen stepparent.

To qualify, immigrants must have resided in the U.S. for 10 or more years as of June 17 and be legally married to a citizen. On average, those eligible for the process have lived in the U.S. for 23 years.

Eligible immigrant children must be younger than 21, unmarried and their parents must have been married before the child turned 18.

At the White House on Tuesday, first lady Jill Biden described a common scenario, of an immigrant who came to the U.S. to work, fell in love and built a life here.

“But hanging over you is a shadow: a missing piece of paper, the possibility that your family may not be able to stay together,” she said. “It’s a story that too many families all across the country live every day.”