(Headline USA) President Joe Biden is taking a desperate election-year step to offer amnesty to potentially hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants living in the U.S.
His latest political ploy follows an executive order in which Biden purported to crack down on the border crisis that his prior three-plus years of open-border policies actively supported and facilitated.
Biden’s handlers are now attempting to gaslight Americans into believing that he is proactively taking charge of the situation. However, experts contend that the order does little to address the actual issues and function effectively as a fig leaf to cover up the ongoing influx of illegals.
Border security is not a political issue to weaponize – it’s a responsibility we all share.
So is immigration.
I’m not interested in playing politics with either.
I’m interested in fixing them.
— President Biden (@POTUS) June 18, 2024
Nonetheless, left-wing activists have expressed their performative outrage at the idea that the Democrat administration would dare enforce the nation’s immigration laws, and to placate them, the White House must now do what it intended all along, by offering blanket amnesty to some half a million future Biden voters, despite having received no legislative authorization to do so.
The White House announced Tuesday that the Biden administration will, in the coming months, allow illegal who are married to U.S. citizens to apply for permanent residency and eventually citizenship, according to senior administration officials.
While those who entered illegally in Biden’s watch are ineligible, it sees targeted especially at the illegals who first received provisional amnesty under former President Barack Obama’s controversial Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy, which offered deportation protections and temporary work permits for young illegal immigrants.
To qualify for Biden’s plan, an illegal immigrant must have lived in the United States for 10 years as of Monday and be married to a U.S. citizen. If a qualifying immigrant’s application is approved, he or she would have three years to apply for a green card and receive a temporary work permit, shielded from deportation in the meantime.
About 50,000 illegal immigrant children with parents who are married to U.S. citizen could also potentially qualify for the process, according to senior administration officials who briefed reporters on the condition of anonymity.
There is no requirement on how long the couple must have been married, but no one becomes eligible after Monday. That means immigrants who reach that 10-year mark after Monday will not qualify for the program, according to the officials.
Senior administration officials said they anticipate the process will be open for applications by the end of the summer. Fees to apply have yet to be determined.
Biden will speak about his plans at a Tuesday event at the White House, which will also mark the 12th anniversary of the DACA program.
Democrats hope to sharply contrast Biden with presumptive GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump and his campaign pledge to deport millions if he is reelected.
Trump has leaned into his immigration policies as Biden has faced criticism on his poor handling of immigration throughout his presidency. On Tuesday, Trump’s campaign accused the incumbent president of creating “another invitation for illegal immigration” with the new amnesty policy.
“Biden only cares about one thing—power—and that’s why he is giving mass amnesty and citizenship to hundreds of thousands of illegals who he knows will ultimately vote for him and the Open Border Democrat Party,” Trump campaign spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said.
Because the threat of a second Trump administration looms over Biden’s new policy, Tuesday’s actions will set off a monthslong sprint by leftist organizations to get as many illegal immigrants to apply for the program as possible.
Trump could dissolve the program if he is reelected, but immigrants who are granted the parole status would still be protected, and on the pathway to eventually vote.
Among advocates, , the, said Biden’s announcement would energize Latino communities to get out and support him.
“This is what our communities have needed to rally behind President Biden for reelection,” said open-borders activist Gustavo Torres.
Biden also planned to announce new regulations allowing certain illegals to qualify more easily for work visas, offering sturdier protections than the work permits currently granted by DACA, which faces ongoing legal challenges and is no longer taking new applications.
The policy would expand on authority used by presidents George W. Bush and Obama to allow “parole in place” for family members of military members, said open-borders activist Andrea Flores, a former policy adviser in the Obama and Biden administrations.
The parole-in-place process allows qualifying illegals to get on the path to U.S. permanent residency without leaving the country, removing a common barrier for those married to Americans.
The same radical leftists who were infuriated with Biden’s prior executive order and anti-open-border rhetoric praised the president on Tuesday.
“Many Americans would be shocked to hear that when a U.S. citizen marries an undocumented person, their spouse is not automatically eligible for citizenship,” said Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., who leads the Congressional Progressive Caucus. “Imagine loving someone, marrying them, and then still continuing to fear you would be separated from them.”
According to Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, over 6 million illegals have entered the United States under the Biden administration. “That is more than the population of 33 different States in this country,” Abbott said in his January statement condemning Biden for his in-action at the border.
Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press
