President Joe Biden is considering an immigration policy that would offer a green card to illegal migrants who have been in the country for so long that their deportation would cause "unusual hardship" for family members, Politico reported.
The policy, called "cancellation of removal," could result in lawful permanent residence for 4,000 migrants per year. Illegals who have been in the country for more than 10 years can apply to the program, according to the Executive Office for Immigration Review.
The idea was spawned by former President Barack Obama's launch of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program in 2012, according to Politico.
Criteria for the program, according to a EOIR 2023 document:
- Your U.S. citizen or lawful permanent spouse, parent, or child would suffer exceptional and extremely unusual hardship if you were ordered to leave the United States.
- You follow the U.S. laws and have not been convicted of any serious crimes that automatically disqualify you.
- You are a person of "good moral character."
- You have been in the U.S. for at least the last 10 years.
DACA issued green cards to children who were brought into the country illegally but didn't know any other country as their home.
It was just more than a month ago that Biden told the nation's governors that he was exploring executive action he could take to curb illegal immigration. House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., called out Biden's musings as "election-year gimmicks."
Politico in its report cited sources that said Biden has backed off on taking any action at the border as there's been a decrease in migration since December's record-breaking number of illegal crossings. With that has come less intense media coverage on the border, giving Biden latitude to do nothing at the moment, according to the report.
"They're in that pretty classic mode of, nothing is on fire right now," Politico quoted an immigration policy advocate.
That would not be true of Republicans' thinking, who see the massacre in Moscow as a good reason to hit Biden's lax border policies and continue to seek answers in the death of student Laken Riley in Georgia, allegedly murdered by a Venezuelan illegal.
Last week, a group of more than 100 migrants stormed a border fence in El Paso, Texas, knocking over guards.
"They have been taught by this administration that it is OK to violate our laws. They know and understand that they can do anything they want because they don't believe that our laws apply to them," National Border Patrol Council President Brandon Judd told Newsmax.