Texas lawmakers, activists and immigration experts had mixed responses to President Joe Biden’s policy providing new protections for the undocumented spouses of U.S. citizens, which was unveiled Tuesday.
The policy was met with vitriol from conservative lawmakers, and cautious celebration from immigrants’ rights activists who emphasized that the policy was far from delivering large-scale relief to vulnerable populations across the state.
“I think the scale shows how outdated our laws are,” said University of Texas law professor Elissa C. Steglich. “These are long-term residents here in the United States, community members with strong U.S. ties, with U.S. citizen spouses, and so the scale reflects just how much of an update our laws need to recognize who is actually in our communities as long-term residents.”
The White House formally announced the policy in a Tuesday morning news briefing, though rumors that the Biden administration was set to adopt the measure had been previously circulated.
The measure was introduced as a way of keeping families together by letting noncitizen spouses and children apply for permanent residency without having to leave the country and can instead “parole in place.” Previously, noncitizen spouses were still eligible for permanent residency, but they were required to leave the country and risk facing three to 10-year bars on their applications being considered.
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“President Biden believes that securing the border is essential,” the White House said in a news release. “He also believes in expanding lawful pathways and keeping families together, and that immigrants who have been in the United States for decades, paying taxes and contributing to their communities, are part of the social fabric of the country.”
What will change?
For years, U.S. immigration law distinguished between people who entered the country legally and those who did not when considering their eligibility for permanent residency and eventual citizenship. Those who entered the U.S. without authorization were required to return to their home country before applying for a green card and risked a three-year bar on their application's consideration if their unlawful stay in the U.S. exceeded six months, and a 10-year bar if that stay exceeded one year.
Steglich, who specializes in immigration and citizenship law, told the American-Statesman that the policy imposed significant emotional and financial burdens on families who were long-term residents. She explained that often those applying for residency were household breadwinners, meaning that the extended bar represented a significant amount in lost earnings in addition to the cost of travel and applications.
“People were definitely afraid,” Steglich said. “It just wasn’t viable for someone to risk that three- or 10-year separation just to get a green card.”
During this time, waivers were available for eligible applicants to exempt themselves from yearlong bars on consideration, but it wasn’t until the Obama administration that those waivers were considered before an applicant left the country. Under that policy, noncitizens had a guarantee that their applications would be considered upon being filed at the U.S. consulate in their home countries.
The policy announced in Tuesday's news release has existed in some capacity for military spouses and family members since Barack Obama’s presidency. The order will essentially collapse the distinction between lawful and unlawful entry when considering noncitizen spouses’ residency applications.
“It avoids having to ask for the waiver,” Steglich explained. “It avoids having to risk any period of separation through the consular processing.”
Eligibility for the new “parole in place” program will only apply to those who have been in the United States for 10 years and who were married as of July 17.
Texas responds to federal immigration change
The new immigration policy is predicted to affect around 500,000 undocumented immigrants, around 5% of the nation’s total undocumented population. Texas’ immigrant population will account for at least tens of those thousands, according to Steglich.
Many commentators have likened the policy’s scale to Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, the Obama-era policy providing deferred action to undocumented minors who arrived in the U.S. as children. Tuesday’s policy is also being compared to DACA for the legal challenges it will doubtlessly incur in Texas.
Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, criticized the new policy in a post on X, formerly Twitter, saying, “Another Biden 'pull' factor, incentivizing more illegal immigration, and guaranteeing years of litigation.”
Steglich, responding to the anticipated legal challenges, predicted that Texas, as well as “other states who have traditionally sought to limit federal action in this area along these lines,” likely will soon file litigation challenging the new measure.
In September 2023, a federal District Court in Texas decided that DACA was unlawful and in violation of U.S. immigration law.
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, accused the Biden administration of instituting the policy as a way of padding Democratic votes. He posted on X that “The Democrats’ plan is to make every one of them citizens since Democrats want to buy their votes.”
U.S. Rep. Colin Allred, D-Dallas, who is challenging Cruz in November for the U.S. Senate, said Tuesday that the U.S. immigration system is broken and needs to be remedied so it can meet the nation's economic needs.
“Though there is no substitution for Congressional action in the form of comprehensive immigration reform, this is a common-sense step that will grow our economy and help folks who want to work to get out of the shadows," Allred said. "This is one part of the solution, and I will keep working to secure our border and fix our immigration system, unlike Ted Cruz who would rather play politics than do anything to solve this problem.”
Steglich said that noncitizen spouses would not be eligible to vote in the upcoming presidential elections, and that the soonest any new voters would be registered because of the new policy would be three years.
“In the short term, it’s not going to result in any new voters,” Steglich said. “I think it’s impossible to avoid doing anything in the immigration space without it being viewed as political.”
Texas-based immigrants right group RAICES wrote in a Tuesday news release that the policy would begin to unravel decades of harm to immigrant communities tracing back to the Clinton administration’s 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act.
However, the group also highlighted that the new policy is being announced on the heels of another executive order restricting the number of asylum-seekers that many have denounced as among the administration’s most draconian and restrictive.
“We applaud any action that provides long awaited relief for American families caught in the crossfires of U.S. culture wars,” wrote RAICES’ CEO Dolores K. Schroeder in the group’s news release. “But we must acknowledge that this latest immigration program does not remedy the years of harm and injustice inflicted by this country’s flawed immigration system.”
