The 2024 election isn’t looking good for Joe Biden. Now he’s pulling back the curtain on his plans.
Because he made a last ditch amnesty effort as his campaign atrophies.
Immigrants who are in the U.S. illegally and are married to U.S. citizens will soon be able to apply for President Biden’s new deportation amnesty, with applications opening on Aug. 19, the government announced Wednesday.
However, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) warned individuals not to send in applications yet, stating that any submitted beforehand will be rejected.
Under this plan, undocumented immigrants who have resided in the U.S. for at least 10 years and are married to an American citizen can apply to change their status to lawful permanent resident without having to leave the U.S. and return to their home countries.
President Biden announced this plan almost a month ago, but the government has yet to publish the regulations detailing eligibility and the exact process that immigrants will have to follow. USCIS indicated that these details are still being finalized.
“You cannot apply for this process yet,” the agency emphasized.
“We will publish a Federal Register notice that will further explain eligibility and the application process, including the form to use, and the associated filing fees. If you apply before the implementation date in the Federal Register notice, we will reject your application.”
Biden is expected to announce the Aug. 19 date for the start of applications in an address to UnidosUS, a major Hispanic and immigrant rights group, at its convention in Las Vegas on Wednesday.
This amnesty hinges on “parole in place,” a legal status the government can grant to defer deportation and allow someone to obtain a legal work permit.
Can he do this?
The administration claims it can extend parole to the spouses because their marriages provide a clear path to citizenship, and the parole is meant to ease this route.
However, some legal experts argue that the administration’s plan was complicated by a recent Supreme Court decision on U.S. citizens’ marriage rights to immigrants.
In her dissenting opinion, Justice Sonia Sotomayor seemed to undermine Biden’s logic for the new parole program.
“Marriage is not an automatic ticket to a green card,” Justice Sotomayor wrote.
“A married citizen-noncitizen couple must jump through a series of administrative hoops to apply for the lawful permanent residency that marriage can confer.”
She added that this process includes “the risk” that when the noncitizen spouse departs, they may not be able to reenter the U.S.
“Ironically, the longer the noncitizen spouse has lived in the United States, the more difficult and uncertain the process to adjust to lawful status can become,” Justice Sotomayor wrote.
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