United States President Joe Biden announced on Thursday a new migration plan in an attempt to address illegal crossings ahead of a planned border visit, a first during his time as president.
The Democrat's plan is to expand a program that would accept up to 30,000 migrants every month who were coming from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela. He also plans to expel as many illegal migrants from those countries who circumvent U.S. laws amid a surge of crossings in the southern border.
Joe Biden's New Immigration Plan
Biden, in a speech from the White House, unveiled plans to visit the southern border on Sunday, making a stop in El Paso, Texas, in order to meet with local officials and address border security issues. He also renewed his calls on Congress to pass new immigration laws, saying that his powers to address a growing crisis were limited.
The U.S. president added that the politics around the border policy and migration often cloud discussions around the way to handle migration and crossings at the border. He said that it was important to take a step back and see the bigger picture, as per CNN.
Biden's new plan and scheduled visit to the border amount to a surge in presidential attention to an issue that has become a political liability for the Democrat. He has continued to face mountain criticism from Republican lawmakers and from some border-district Democrats for his failure to address record levels of crossings.
The president said that if the most extreme Republicans continue to demagogue the issue and reject solutions, he is left with only one choice, do as much as he can to change the atmosphere.
But in response to Biden's announcement, immigrant advocates denounced the plans, saying that it risks leaving more migrants in harm's way in Mexico and is likely to exclude people with no connections to the United States.
According to BBC, the announcement comes as more than 2 million people were detained at the border in the 2022 fiscal year that ended on Sept. 30. The numbers represented a 24% increase from the statistics from the previous year.
Expulsion of Illegal Immigrants
In December, detentions at the border were found to average between 700 and 1,000 every day, which did not include an increasing number of migrants who tried to leave Cuba and Haiti by sea.
Citizens who came from Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela, who are facing a slew of economic issues and political repression, accounted for roughly 500,000 of the total. The new humanitarian "parole" program would provide citizens from those nations with an expanded legal pathway.
They will receive more opportunities to live and work in the United States for up to two years and to be eligible, migrants must have financial sponsors in the United States and need to pass security vetting.
Biden also said that Mexican authorities have agreed to accept the return of migrants from various regions who entered the U.S. illegally, which is a crucial step in the president's plan to dramatically increase expulsions at the southern border, USA Today reported.
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