In the midst of a protracted impasse in Congress over immigration, the president Joe Biden opened a back door to allow entry into the country of hundreds of thousands new immigrants, greatly expanding the use of probation programs for people fleeing war and political turmoil around the world.
The measures, launched last year to offer shelter to people fleeing Ukraine, Haiti and Latin Americaoffer immigrants the opportunity to fly to the United States and immediately obtain a work permit, as long as they have a private patron take responsibility for them.
By mid-April they had already come close to 300,000 Ukrainians to the United States under various programs, more than the total number of people from around the world admitted through the official US refugee program in the past five years.
It is expected that by the end of 2023 some 360,000 Venezuelans, Cubans, Nicaraguans and Haitians through a similar privately sponsored initiative introduced in January to curb unauthorized crossings at the southern border; this exceeds the number of people from these countries who have obtained a visa in the last 15 years.
The Biden administration has also significantly expanded the number of people in the United States with what is known as temporary protected status, a program by the former president Donald Trump tried to delete.
According to a new report from the Pew Research Center, since Biden took office, the protection to about 670,000 people from 16 countries or have become eligible to apply.
Access roads
Collectively, these temporary humanitarian programs could become the largest expansion of legal immigration in decades.
“The longer Congress goes without legislating on immigration, the more the executive branch will do what it can within its powers based on the president’s principles,” said Theresa Cardinal Brown, senior adviser at the Washington Bipartisan Policy Center .
The adviser underlined that the main challenge is that “the courts can say that the president has no power or that he is a abuse of discretion and take it away.”
Critics have already complained that the government is using unbridled discretion that goes against laws passed by Congress to regulate legal immigration, which is based largely on family ties and, to a lesser extent, work.
With Biden expected to begin his re-election campaign this week, Republicans are likely to focus on what they see as overly lax immigration policies.
Twenty Republican-ruled states, including Texas, Florida, Tennessee and Arkansas, have filed lawsuits in federal court to suspend the temporary residency permit program for residents of Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela, claiming it will admit 360,000 new immigrants to the ‘year from those countries and burden states with extra costs for health care, education and law enforcement.
With the implementation of the programs for Latin Americans, the Biden government was responding to widespread criticism of the chaotic situation on the southern border, which had registered last year 1.5 million crosses Not allowed.
It circumvented years of failed attempts in Congress to legalize illegal workers who are already in the country or to make more visas available for employers wishing to hire temporary workers.
The new probation programs are tentative (most expire in two years unless renewed), but they are already changing the nature of immigrant arrivals.
Migrants who were admitted into the country after flooding the border from several of the same conflict countries last year have not been allowed to work for at least six months after opening an asylum case.
As a result, many ended up in hostels from cities like New York, which has had trouble receiving them.
Instead, the temporary probation program requires immigrants first to have a sponsor in the United States who takes financial responsibility for their installation and almost immediately offers a work permit to those who have obtained it.
Entrepreneurs with labor shortages welcome the arrival of immigrants because they are an important source of new workforce.
The government’s goal was to discourage the hundreds of thousands of migrants arriving at the border by allowing them to apply more orderly from their countries of origin.
After the programs start, the total apprehensions of the Border Patrol at the border they hit their lowest levels in two years, led by a precipitous drop in Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans.
The weekly average of arrests dropped from 1,231 at the beginning of January to 46 at the end of February, when some temporary residence permit measures were announced.
“The successful use of these humane parole processes and the significant decrease in illegal crossing attempts are compelling evidence that noncitizens prefer to use a safe, lawful, and orderly route to enter the United States, if available, rather than put their lives and livelihoods in the hands of ruthless smugglers,” the Department of Homeland Security said in a statement.
However, in general, the total number of people of all nationalities who cross the border remains near all-time highs, even with new schedules.
The programs have divided the top of the red states. There are those who, even those who have filed a lawsuit, argue that with the new programs Biden has in fact kept the doors of the country wide open, even if instead of masses of people cross without permission He invited them to enter legally.
However, the programs have gained widespread support in the business community in some conservative states, such as North Dakota, where there is great concern about shortage of workers.
A report last week by FWD.us, a bipartisan pro-immigration group, estimated that some 450,000 migrants from Afghanistan, Ukraine and Latin American countries who have entered the United States on probation programs have found work in industries facing labor shortages, such as construction, food service, healthcare and manufacturing.
In North Dakota, where the oil industry is struggling to hire workers for rigs, the State Petroleum Board is recruiting people across the western plains to sponsor new Ukrainian immigrants who can be put to work.
The first 25 Ukrainian families are expected to arrive in the country in July, with hundreds more to follow soon after.
“Ukrainians need us and we need them,” said Ron Ness, chairman of the board.
“We have been working hard to develop a very important large-scale project to attract them.”
Ukrainian immigrants from western North Dakota join a community of Ukrainians that emerged there in the late 19th century.
State authorities say welcoming the new arrivals would meet a humanitarian goal and help alleviate the shortfall of about 10,000 oil industry workers.
Glenn Baranko, owner of a large company that builds drilling rigs and great-grandson of Ukrainian settlershe said his family and friends have already agreed to sponsor 10 people he plans to hire.
“I want them here and I’m going to help them find their first apartment and make sure their fridge is stocked until they start getting paychecks,” she said.
c.2023 The New York Times Society
Source: Clarin
Mary Ortiz is a seasoned journalist with a passion for world events. As a writer for News Rebeat, she brings a fresh perspective to the latest global happenings and provides in-depth coverage that offers a deeper understanding of the world around us.