President Joe Biden is set to announce a new policy that would protect hundreds of thousands of undocumented spouses of US citizens from deportation, according to administration officials.
The issue of immigration has proven an election-year headache for Mr Biden, who recently issued a sweeping executive action to curb record migrant arrivals at the US-Mexico border.
The new policy will apply to those who have been in the country for at least 10 years and will allow them to work in the US legally.
The White House believes more than 500,000 spouses will benefit.
Mr Biden has vowed to make the US immigration system “more fair and more just”. Polls show that the issue is a primary concern for many voters ahead of the presidential poll in November.
The White House also believes the new spouses policy will benefit 50,000 young people under 21 whose parent is married to an American citizen.
It marks the most significant relief programme for undocumented migrants already in the US since the Obama administration announced the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or Daca, in 2012.
The announcement comes ahead of an event on Tuesday marking the 12th anniversary of Daca, which shielded over 530,000 migrants who came to the US as children – known as Dreamers – from deportation.
On Monday, senior administration officials said that undocumented spouses of US citizens would qualify if they had lived in the country for 10 years and been married as of 17 June.
Those who qualify will have three years to apply for permanent residency and will be eligible for a three-year work permit.
On average, the White House believes that those eligible for the process have been in the US for 23 years. A majority will have been born in Mexico.
They will be “paroled in place” and allowed to remain in the US while their status is changed.
NumbersUSA, an organisation that advocates for tighter immigration controls, slammed the new policy as “unconscionable”.
The organisation’s chief executive, James Massa, said in a statement: “Rather than stopping the worst border crisis in history, President Biden has overreached his executive authority to use an unconstitutional process, circumventing voters and their elected representatives in Congress, to send a message that amnesty is available to those who enter illegally into the United States.”
Read more at BBC.com
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