What to know about Biden's immigrant citizenship order
Plus, some reactions and new illegal border crossing numbers
Earlier this week, President Biden announced an action to grant citizenship to an estimated 500,000 illegal aliens in the United States characterized by media outlets as a “large-scale immigration program.”
Biden’s move represents the largest program for undocumented immigrants since DACA under former President Barack Obama, which shields "Dreamers" brought to the U.S. as children.
Here’s what Biden’s program will do:
It will offer a “path to legal permanent residency” and “citizenship” for roughly 500,000 undocumented immigrants who are married to American citizens.
To qualify, immigrants must have lived in the U.S. for at least 10 years, be married to a U.S. citizen as of June 17th, and meet other requirements. Those deemed threats to security will not qualify.
The program allows eligible immigrants to apply for temporary work permits and deportation protections through the immigration "parole" authority.
It also provides a streamlined path for these immigrants to obtain a green card and eventually citizenship without having to leave the U.S., which is normally required for those who entered illegally.
After 5 years with a green card, they can apply for U.S. citizenship.
An estimated 50,000 undocumented children of these mixed-status families may also qualify for the program if under age 21.
The program is expected to face legal challenges, likely from Republican-led states.
Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) was among the first to take to social media with a reaction, writing in a post on X, “First, President Biden pitches a bogus executive order to “crack down” on illegal immigration. But the order still allows millions of illegal aliens to cross the border. Now, he’s planning amnesty for hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens already here. Unbelievable.”
U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) also reacted to the announcement in a post on X.
“Just two weeks ago, the President pretended to crack down on the open-border catastrophe by engaging an election-year border charade. Now he’s trying to play both sides and is granting amnesty to hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens,” wrote Johnson. “The President may think our homeland security is some kind of game that he can try to use for political points, but Americans know this amnesty plan will only incentivize more illegal immigration and endanger Americans.”
Johnson continued, “This is proof-positive of the Democrats’ plan to turn illegal aliens into voters. I fully expect this order, which is manifestly contrary to the Immigration and Naturalization Act, to be challenged and struck down in the courts.”
As of the publication of this article, Biden’s remarks do not appear anywhere on the White House website. The only remarks published are that of First Lady Jill Biden and a statement from Vice President Harris on “keeping families together.”
The plan outlining the mass amnesty program is also missing from the White House’s website.
Below is the video of Biden making the announcement and an unperfected transcript of this video can be accessed here.
More To The Story
Biden claimed during his remarks that the majority of American voters support his amnesty plan but the polls tell a different story. American voters, in fact, support mass deportations according to a June CBS News/YouGov poll.
On page 76 of the poll toplines, the results show 62% of voters support a mass deportation program.
In the party breakdown, that includes just 38% of Democrats, but 60% of independents and 88% of Republicans.
Notable by race, 47% of Black voters and 53% of Hispanic voters support a mass deportation program.
Former President Donald Trump has said numerous times during campaign events that he would carry out "the largest domestic deportation operation in American history." He indicated that the National Guard would be utilized to deport migrants illegally crossing into the country.
Skipping down a page, voters were asked if they support local police identifying illegal aliens and 62% said yes.
The breakout percentages by party were slightly lower here but all were above 50% other than Democrats at 45% in favor.
Black and Hispanic voters were well over 50% in favor at 54% and 57% respectively.
Going back up to page 55 of the poll, voters were asked about what would happen to illegal immigration levels if Trump were reelected.
An overwhelming majority — 70% — said those levels would decrease. The same question was asked about Biden and only 20% said illegal migration would decrease whereas 49% said it would increase and 30% responded "no effect at all."
The poll included 2,063 adults in the U.S. and was slightly weighted which is not unusual. What's interesting about this poll are the states where an "oversample" occurred. Per the methodology of the poll, with emphasis added:
"Respondents were selected to be representative of adults nationwide with an oversample of adults living in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin."
Each one of those states is considered a key swing state in this year's presidential election.
Biden’s large-scale amnesty program follows his proclamation earlier in June that is supposed to temporarily stem the number of illegal aliens attempting to apply for asylum at the southern border.
According to a report by the NY Post, least 42,000 illegal aliens have crossed the U.S. southern border since Biden's proclamation — that we know of.
On June 20, just days after Biden made his amnesty program announcement, FOX News’ Bill Melugin dropped new border statistics on X that include “at least 194,000 known gotaways recorded at our southern border since fiscal year 2024 began on October 1st, w/ an average of 500+ per day over the last week.”
“There have been more than 1.8 million gotaways at the border under President Biden’s administration according to this data, combined with CBP internal data we obtained via Freedom of Information Act,” wrote Melugin.
Related News:
Biden admin offers ‘mass amnesty’ to migrants as it quietly terminates 350,000 asylum cases: sources - NY Post, June 2, 2024
NC Sen. Ted Budd Leads 21 Senators to Demand Answers After Suspected ISIS Terrorists at Southern Border Were Released Into U.S. - June 18, 2024, via Budd’s official Senate website