President Biden is weighing giving out green cards to up to 4,000 undocumented immigrants facing deportation, so long as they have resided in the US for at least a decade and have not been convicted of “serious crimes.”
The Justice Department’s Executive Office for Immigration Review floated a proposal to make thousands of migrants lawful permanent residents in September 2023, the Daily Mail first reported.
To qualify for the exalted status, the migrants must also have “good moral character” and make the case that they “would suffer exceptional and extremely unusual hardship” if deported.
“You will have to wait your turn before an immigration judge can approve your application,” the proposal document reads. “This may take years.”
“EOIR defers to the Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, for information regarding the issuances of ‘green cards,'” a spokeswoman for the office said in a statement.
“As an adjudicatory agency in the Department of Justice, EOIR does not issue benefits.”
In his first 100 days as president, Biden took several executive actions to reverse former President Donald Trump’s immigration policies such as the “Remain in Mexico” program, actions which were later upheld in federal court rulings.
The number of migrants illegally crossing into the US since then has set records every year, with 7.4 million in total being apprehended at the southern border, according to US Customs and Border Protection data.
Border authorities also caught 270 people whose names are on US terror watchlists in fiscal years 2022 and 2023, with another 50 having been encountered so far in fiscal year 2024.
Over 85% of migrants who enter the US are subsequently released into the country, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas revealed earlier this year, along with 1.8 million “gotaways” who evaded arrest altogether.
More than 320,000 migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela have also been flown into or directly entered the US due to Biden’s expansion of humanitarian parole.
The parole program drew national attention last month after a Venezuelan national who entered the US illegally in 2022 was charged with murdering Georgia nursing student Laken Riley.
Biden invoked her name during his State of the Union address and referred to her alleged killer, Jose Ibarra, as an “illegal” — only to apologize later and say he should have used the term “undocumented.”
Last week, a group of migrants broke down a border fence to rush into the country near El Paso, Texas, knocking over members of the Texas National Guard as they entered amid a “spring surge.”
Congressional Republicans have slammed the Biden administration for abandoning Trump-era immigration policies and relaxing rules for detaining and removing most migrants.
Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) told The Post in a phone interview Tuesday from Eagle Pass, Texas, that the green card handouts will further “incentivize” illegal crossings.
“Talking to the local law enforcement in the area, they talk about the danger of incentivizing these crossings,” Blackburn said. “They talk about how the border crossings picked up after Joe Biden was inaugurated.”
“And one of the sheriffs said it’s like people got on their journey and started coming this direction and they waited for Biden to go into office and then they started crossing and the numbers have not leveled off since 2021,” she added.
During a January trip to the US-Mexico border, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said a local sheriff told Republican lawmakers “it took less than six months for the Biden administration to dismantle 100 years of progress that the US Border Patrol had achieved.”
“Remember, it was on his very first day in office that President Biden stopped construction of the southern border wall and he ended the Remain in Mexico policy,” Johnson said at a press conference.
“If the Biden administration would reinstate just the Remain in Mexico policy, it could stem the flow by probably 70% or more — but he refuses to do it.”
The following month, House Republicans impeached Mayorkas for failing to enforce federal immigration law and lying to Congress about the US border being “secure.”
Former President Barack Obama implemented a green card handout similar to Biden’s through his Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival program, which waived deportation for thousands brought to the US illegally as children.
Under the Immigration and Nationality Act, the attorney general is prohibited from canceling the removal of any more than 4,000 non-legal permanent residents per fiscal year.
