LOS ANGELES: As part of a new Biden administration initiative that was unveiled on Monday, Miguel Aleman, 39, who was brought to the country from Mexico when he was 4 years old, is one of hundreds of thousands of immigrants trying to find a route to citizenship.
One of Democratic President Joe Biden’s most significant initiatives to grant legal status to long-term, unlawful inhabitants of the US is the program. It occurs months before the election on November 5, which is a major emphasis for Republicans.
Aleman, an Uber driver and father of two small children with his US-citizen wife, would have to move to Mexico without the program, maybe for a decade or more, before being granted permission to return.
Aleman, one of the many immigrants from Mexico, El Salvador, and the Philippines present at a Friday informational meeting on the program sponsored by the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles, remarked, “My entire family is here.”
An estimated 500,000 spouses who have resided in the nation for a minimum of ten years will be eligible for the plan.
According to Biden administration officials, 500,000 spouses who have resided in the country for at least ten years as of June 17 are eligible to apply for Keeping Families Together, a program that was unveiled in June. A further 50,000 children under 21 who have a parent who is a citizen of the US will be qualified.
Before withdrawing from the presidential contest against hardline immigration Republican Donald Trump in July, Biden presented the legalization initiative.
Earlier this month, Vice President Kamala Harris emerged as the Democratic nominee. She will formally accept the nomination on Thursday at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
Trump has chastised Harris for the unprecedented number of people apprehended attempting to enter the US illegally since she and Biden assumed office in 2021. In response, Harris has emphasized both her own law enforcement background and Trump’s opposition to a bipartisan border security package that was thwarted earlier this year in the US Senate.
This month, during campaign stops in Arizona and Nevada, Harris advocated for “an earned pathway to citizenship” for individuals who are undocumented immigrants in the US. In June, Karoline Leavitt, the spokesman for the Trump campaign, called the naturalization program a “mass amnesty” and restated Trump’s promise, if reelected, to expel a record number of illegal immigrants from the country.
Under Keeping Families Together, qualified spouses can petition for permanent residence without having to leave the country, although otherwise they would have to wait years to be allowed to return. After receiving a green card, or permanent residency, a spouse has three years to petition for citizenship.
Legal challenges sponsored by Republicans are probably in store for the scheme. For some participants in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program—which grants work permits and protection from deportation to immigrants brought to the country illegally as minors—the effort may provide a route to citizenship.
