TEMPE, Arizona (AP) — In two weeks, President Joe Biden has imposed significant restrictions on immigrants seeking asylum in the U.S. while offering potential citizenship to hundreds of thousands of people without legal status already living in the country.
These two measures – the first to support immigrants living in the United States illegally, the second to prevent other immigrants from crossing the border – give the president a chance to address one of the biggest weaknesses in his re-election campaign.
Americans are giving Biden indigent marks for his handling of immigration and prefer the approach of likely Republican candidate Donald Trump, whose administration has implemented tough policies such as separating immigrant families and who has now proposed the largest deportation drive in US history if he is re-elected.
While the White House has said its recent actions are not meant to offset each other, the election-year policy changes offer something for voters who think border security is too tolerant as well as those who support helping immigrants living in the U.S. illegally. They reflect the White House’s overall approach since Biden took office, which has focused on a mix of measures to restrict illegal immigration and provide aid to those already in the country.
Trump and leading Republicans have criticized Biden for the record number of encounters at the border. Some claim, without evidence, that Biden is supporting a so-called “invasion” to influence the election. Tightening asylum rules, as Biden has done, could reduce the number of border crossings.
Helping long-time residents obtain citizenship, meanwhile, could defuse criticism from immigration advocates and liberal parts of Biden’s Democratic coalition who opposed novel border restrictions introduced earlier this month.
A March Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll found that only about three in 10 Americans approved of Biden’s handling of immigration. A similar share approved of his handling of border security. In the same poll, about half of American adults said Biden bore a great deal or a great deal of responsibility for the current situation at the U.S.-Mexico border, compared with about a third who said Trump bore a great deal or a great deal of responsibility.
Biden’s latest move was supported by moderate Democrat Tom Suozzi of New York, who won a special election in February to replace expelled former Republican Rep. George Santos. Suozzi’s campaign revolved heavily around immigration and New York’s difficulties in absorbing thousands of immigrants bused in from the U.S.-Mexico border.
Suozzi described how, when he was first elected mayor of Glen Cove, New York, in 1994, he helped organize centers to assist groups of immigrants waiting on street corners for day labor jobs, something he said still influences his view of the issue today.
“The reality is that the same guys who were standing on the street corners in 1994 now own their own businesses and homes and their kids went to school with my kids,” Suozzi said in a phone call with reporters. “We have to do something. People are fed up.”
Van Callaway, a barber from Mesa, Arizona, who uses they/them pronouns, voted for Biden four years ago but was disappointed to hear the president would make it harder to apply for asylum. But he was also skeptical that the president’s plan to encourage legalization for spouses of U.S. citizens would actually be implemented.
“I wish the process was easier so the people who need to be here could be here,” said Callaway, 29. “And I wish there was more love and acceptance. And more empathy. I think if there was a lot of empathy for immigration as a whole, the world would be a much better place.”
The Department of Homeland Security estimates that about 500,000 spouses of U.S. citizens will be protected by Biden’s latest measure, as well as 50,000 children of a noncitizen parent. The White House said the beneficiaries have been in the U.S. for an average of 23 years.
That won’t be the case for most novel arrivals at the U.S.-Mexico border, who are unable to apply due to Biden’s other executive actions. But the White House points out that it has taken several other measures to make it easier for novel immigrants to enter the country.
While Republicans in Congress refuse to “address our broken immigration system,” the administration has “taken action to secure our border and keep American families together in the United States,” said Angelo Fernández Hernández, a White House spokesman.
That includes the launch of a program last year that allows people from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela to come to the U.S. if they have a financial sponsor, pass a background check and fly into a U.S. airport — nearly 435,000 people were using that program by the end of April. The administration also expanded the H-2 fleeting work visa programs and set up processing centers away from the U.S. border, in countries like Guatemala and Colombia.
Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson nevertheless accused Biden of trying to “play both sides.”
And Trump dismissed Biden’s approach to asylum as “all just a show,” suggesting that the president is “granting mass amnesty and citizenship to hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants who he knows will ultimately vote for him.”
Callaway said deciding who to vote for this year will be agonizing, “a really tough dilemma.” They are concerned about Trump’s agenda for his second term, but also furious about Biden’s approach to Israel’s war in Gaza and unenthusiastic about supporting a third-party candidate who is unlikely to win. A tougher border policy would be another blow to Biden, they said.
“They tell you what you want to hear, but they don’t often follow through,” Callaway said. “It feels like the things they’re pulling off are driven by prejudice and this weird feeling of victimhood.”
—-
Weissert reported from Washington.
