Biden launches citizenship programme for immigrant spouses of US citizens

Miguel Aleman, a 39-year-old who was taken to the US from Mexico at age four, is among hundreds of thousands of immigrants hoping to find a path to citizenship through a new administration programme launched by President Joe Biden on Monday.

The programme is one of the biggest moves by the Democratic president to provide legal status to long-term US residents who entered illegally. It comes months before the November 5 presidential election in which Republicans have made illegal immigration a central focus.

Without the programme, Aleman, who has two young children with his US citizen wife and works as an Uber driver, would have to relocate to Mexico, possibly for a decade or longer, before being allowed to return legally.

"My whole family is here," said Aleman, one of dozens of immigrants from Mexico, El Salvador and the Philippines who gathered at a Friday information session on the programme organised by the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles.

Keeping Families Together, announced in June, will be open to an estimated 500,000 spouses who have lived in the US for at least 10 years as of June 17 this year, Biden administration officials have said. About 50,000 children under the age of 21 with a US citizen parent will also be eligible.

Biden unveiled the legalisation programme before dropping out of the presidential race against Republican Donald Trump, an immigration hardliner, in July. Vice president Kamala Harris became the Democratic candidate earlier this month and is scheduled to formally accept the nomination at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago on Thursday.

Trump has criticised Harris for record numbers of migrants caught illegally crossing the US-Mexico border since she and Biden took office in 2021. Harris has countered by highlighting her own enforcement record and Trump's opposition to a bipartisan border security bill that failed to advance in the US Senate earlier this year.

At campaign events in Arizona and Nevada this month, Harris called for "an earned pathway to citizenship" for immigrants in the US illegally.

Trump campaign spokesperson Karoline Leavitt in June labeled the citizenship programme a "mass amnesty" and reiterated Trump's pledge to deport historic numbers of immigrants in the country illegally if reelected.

Keeping Families Together allows qualifying spouses to apply for permanent residence without departing the US when they would otherwise need to leave for years before being permitted to return. A spouse who obtains permanent residence, also known as a green card, can apply for citizenship in three years.

The programme is likely to face Republican-led legal challenges.

The initiative could offer a path to citizenship for some people enrolled in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (Daca) programme, which offers deportation relief and work permits to immigrants taken to the US illegally as children.

Daca was launched in 2012 by former president Barack Obama while Biden was vice president. Trump tried to end the Daca programme during his 2017-2021 presidency but was blocked by the Supreme Court. Texas and other states with Republican attorneys general have continued to challenge its legality.

Aleman is enrolled in Daca but hopes to receive permanent status through Keeping Families Together.

"I want to keep contributing to this country," he said.

Reuters