(VitalNews.org) – Joe Biden, President of the United States, has announced a new initiative that would offer citizenship to over half a million undocumented immigrants. This specific plan is targeting children and spouses of those who are already U.S. citizens.
Biden said, “The Statue of Liberty is not some relic of American history. It still stands for who we are.” He continued, “But I also refuse to believe that for us to continue to be an America that embraces immigration, we have to give up securing our border. They’re false choices.”
A White House statement said that the plan would “ensure that US citizens with non-citizen spouses and children can keep their families together,” which is something Biden promised initially when speaking of immigration when he became president.
Under his plan, undocumented immigrants who are married to U.S. citizens or undocumented children of U.S. citizens would qualify for citizenship. This would be done on a case-by-case basis and not all the requests would be approved.
The spouses must be living and married for at least ten years and “not pose a threat to public safety or national security.” Before this is put in place, spouses who were undocumented would have to travel back to their home country to apply for citizenship which is a long process that could take up to ten years.
In reference to the undocumented spouses of U.S. citizens, Biden said in a speech that they “have to leave their families in America with no assurance that they will be allowed back in the United States. So they stay in America, but in the shadows, living in constant fear of deportation without the ability to legally work.”
The DHS says that there are over five hundred thousand non-citizen spouses and about fifty thousand children that would be eligible.
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