America's Talking - Biden Announces Widespread Amnesty Plan for Illegal Immigrants

Episode Date: June 21, 2024

President Joe Biden announced a new plan on Tuesday that will fast track a path to citizenship for hundreds of thousands of foreign nationals who’ve been living in the country illegally for more than 10 years and married a U.S. citizen. He also expanded protections for DACA recipients, according to several reports. In a statement issued by the White House, the president blamed Republicans in Congress for not securing the border and fixing the "broken immigration system." Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Greetings, everyone, and welcome to America in Focus, powered by the Center Square. I'm Dan McAulam, Chief Content Officer at Franklin News Foundation, publisher of the Center Square Newswater Service. We are recording this on Friday, June 21st. Three and a half years into his term, and after nearly 12 million people have illegally crossed the U.S. border, President Joe Biden announced a new plan this week that will fast-track a path to citizenship for hundreds of thousands of foreign nationals. Joining me today to discuss this is Casey Harper, Washington, D.C. Bureau Chief for the Center Square. Casey, let's start with the details of the Amnesty Plan. What are they?

Sure. So this plan is a bit of a reversal from Biden's recent actions. And I'd love to talk more about what is Biden's angle here. But if you do look at the details, you see that for migrants who are married, who have been in the country for more than 10 years, you see. what is recently was kind of a bad word, especially on the right, which is amnesty. It'll fast track a path to citizenship for them. This will affect hundreds of thousands of foreign nationals who are living in the U.S. It's been compared to former President Barack Obama's DACA program, you know, where he protected dreamers and offered sweeping protections to them. Of course, that faces its own pushback and legal challenge.

But ultimately, Obama largely won the day on that. And it remains a not widely popular, but it has a majority support and was able to stay intact. So I think President Biden is trying to recreate a similar kind of moment, a DACA moment in this election year. Of course, Republicans raise concerns about, you know, the impact to American citizens, the impact on taxpayers and state budgets, the national security concerns, as we've talked about on this podcast with terrorism. And so, you know, I think, Dan, what's so interesting about this is just a couple weeks ago, we even talked, I believe, on this podcast about how Biden had issued an executive order that was, you know, strict on immigration, right? It was cracking down on asylum seekers because he had been taking so much flack for the southern border crisis. And now we see this executive order, which is on the other side, you know, releasing amnesty, getting. having hundreds of thousands of migrants, you know, spouses of American citizens a chance to

not really have to worry about their immigration status anymore. So I'm curious just from your perspective, is he waffling here or is he trying to find something down the middle? What do you think Biden's angle is on this from going from very strict asylum policy two weeks ago to now what is definitely a far more liberal policy? Well, poll after poll has shown that the ongoing border crisis, under the current administration is among the top two issues. American voters say they're troubled with, one being, of course, the economy and inflation,

with prices about 20% higher since Biden on just about everything, fuel, food, et cetera, services, et cetera, about 20% higher. And right there with the economy and inflation is this ongoing, border crisis where essentially President Biden under his administration, they ended all kinds of Trump-era border policies, and which critics have said pretty much opened the border to anybody who wanted to flee into the United States. And the fact that we have an election in November, critics are saying this, we have an election in November, and President Biden has taken

two significant actions related to the border, one purportedly, somewhat closing the border, although critics even say that that's not true, that it was more smoke and mirrors than anything else. And now granting amnesty to about a half a million migrants who are technically in the country illegally, but who have been here for at least 10 years and married a U.S. citizen. And then dreamers, dreamers are those folks who under the Obama administration granted some amnesty too. They who arrived in the U.S. as children accompanied by their parents, but still illegally across the border, but were brought by their parents and have been in the country for a number of years, too.

So critics are saying this is just election year politics. Biden and his team are using the border to try and boost his chances at re-election come November. But another thing critics are saying, Casey, is that by granting this amnesty, it just, it, it, it, it sends a note to folks who are considering crossing the U.S. border legally or illegally and saying, hey, if I can just make it across and hide for several years, maybe I'll be granted amnesty. And I won't have to worry about my immigration status. What do you think, Casey? Yeah, I mean, that's a great. It's a great point. And it's been raised many times.

I think what we're getting to here is sort of, what is the leadership. of the United States attitude towards immigration. And we saw that obviously, of course, in the previous administration, Trump had a very strict attitude on immigration. And he wasn't able to, for instance, build an entire border wall, as he promised. He did make a lot of administrative changes. You know, he had remained in Mexico. He did different things that made it harder to come into the country illegally, but it was still possible. But what was different was the attitude, the perception, you know, south of the border in particular. But now it's really a global issue. People are coming from all over the globe, not just south of the border, although they are entering mostly south of the border.

What's the global perception? What's the foreign perception on the U.S. stance? Trump, of course, created this image of the U.S. is very tough, and he discouraged him on illegal immigrants from coming for that reason. Biden has really done the opposite, regardless of whatever, you know, last minute, election year, like executive orders he's laid out. The perception is that the U.S. is welcome, very welcoming to illegal immigrants, and it's very easy to get in the U.S. I mean, I've actually been to South America a couple times in recent years. And then I've talked to a lot of people, and that's their perception. Actually, was it even in Armenia a few weeks ago, and they were talking about how everyone, so all the young people in Armenia just fly to Mexico and then walk across

the border. I was kind of shocked to hear this. So that's the perception abroad, is that it's easy to come in, the government really doesn't care that much. And so you can talk about the policies and things, but that's the attitude. And you even get part of that attitude from, you know, Biden announced this decision on the 12-year anniversary of DACA, right, which as I mentioned was Obama's flagship, one of his flagship immigration policies. It is under, has, you know, faced a tough challenge in the courts, I should note, and probably going to go before the U.S. Supreme Court. But all that goes to this idea of what do illegal immigrants think about coming to the U.S.? And as you said, right now they think, hey, if I can just make it in, I'm not going to get deported

because Biden has pretty much stopped deporting hardly anyone unless you're a serial killer. So they know that, as you said, and it's really an open invitation right now. He has maybe tried to crack down a little bit more this year, but is it too little too late? Is it electorally motivated? And is it all going to evaporate after November? I think those are the questions that voters are asking. Well, and why we close with this, Casey, there have been a number of high profile crimes committed by migrants, foreign nationals who are in the country illegally over the past several.

months getting a lot of attention. So that is another concern of voters. Do you think to close these two recent executive actions by the president, will they have any impact on how voters decide who to vote for in November? I mean, I think there's a sliver of people who are directly benefited in the U.S. by this policy, you know, the spouses and such who, who, who will be very impacted and very motivated. I think really Biden's just trying to create an image perception. I mean, after his crackdown on asylum, you know, there was like, I was looking at this New Yorker article. For instance, it was just, you know, calling Joe Biden's harsh new executive order. It was calling it, you know, predictable and yet surprising, basically in how tough it was. So I think Biden's

trying to change that perception. He's trying to settle down his base. I think this will help a little bit with that. But it's not going to reach across, you know, to moderate. It's not going to impact any Republicans. I think this is a one-week news cycle situation. And overall, people know Trump's tough on the border. Biden is soft on the border. Is that your main issue for voting? You know, if it is, then Trump's going to win handily in November. But if it's, you know, another issue, Biden has a chance. Thank you for joining us today, Casey. Listeners can keep up with this story and more at thecentersquare.com.