There are hundreds of thousands of immigrants in the US who have been living in the country illegally for years, working, earning a living, starting families and sending their children to school. President Biden has said they will be allowed to stay.
And then there are the recent arrivals who have been crossing the U.S.-Mexico border in record numbers seeking protection from poverty and persecution. They will have to wait.
Biden took two big steps on immigration this month, expanding legal protections for the undocumented spouses of U.S. citizens while closing the border to most people seeking asylum in the United States.
Taken together, these decisions underscore Biden's approach to one of the most divisive issues in the 2024 election: He will help immigrants already in the United States but want to keep the border closed to people trying to enter.
The strategy, described by a former White House official as a “get in at the border or get out at the border” approach, reflects the political complexities of immigration, a top concern for voters in both parties in the 2024 presidential election. Polls show that U.S. voters see the situation at the southern border as a problem and are more likely to trust former President Donald J. Trump's handling of it than Mr. Biden.
Democrats are hoping that Biden's actions this month will help solve the problem. Matt A. Barrett, a Biden campaign pollster who focuses on Latino politics, said Americans make a distinction between “long-term illegal immigrants” and “new arrivals.”
“We, and most Americans, see immigrants as something very different,” Barrett said, adding that voters support immigrants as “your friends and uncles who have been here a long time, who work here, who pay taxes here, who are just trying to get a work permit.”
In recent years, a growing number of Democrats have called for the kind of border security measures their party once denounced under Trump.
Biden is navigating a tricky policy as the number of people crossing the border reaches record levels. His decision earlier this year to grant work authorization to thousands of newcomers was an effort to reduce reliance on shelters and other assistance, but it angered other migrants who had waited years to become eligible to work.
Biden aides believe his new policies will appeal to Hispanic voters, many of whom want both tougher enforcement and a better path to citizenship. Polls have shown that some of Trump's proposals, including mass deportations, have resonated with voters, but Biden's campaign believes Republicans are taking too broad a view of immigration.
The White House has previously sought to work with Congress on immigration. Since taking office, Biden has tried to establish a path to citizenship for about 11 million immigrants and in February tried to pass legislation to turn away many immigrants at the border. Both attempts failed due to opposition from Republicans.
Trump, who has made a hard-line stance on immigration central to his political identity, has urged Republicans not to pass Biden's immigration package. After Biden's announcement this week, Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson accused Biden of making an “election year border travesty” and “taking sides.”
But earlier this month, Biden stood in front of a sign that read “Secure the Border” and announced major new restrictions on asylum, stating “a simple truth.”
“If we protect our borders, there's no limit to the number of people who want to come to the United States, because there's no better place on earth than the United States of America,” Biden said in the White House East Room.
Just two weeks later, Biden appeared in the same room to a very different mood, this time joining a crowd of enthusiastic immigrants to announce that he would protect some 500,000 undocumented spouses of U.S. citizens from deportation.
He seemed to acknowledge his balancing act.
“I also know many people in this room have had concerns about the steps I've taken,” Biden said, referring to the asylum ban. “As president, I had no choice but to take these steps. Every country has to secure its borders. That's all there is to it.”
Biden used the event to draw a connection to the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which was popular during the Obama administration and protected hundreds of thousands of young immigrants from deportation.
Like Biden, President Barack Obama tried to mix tough immigration policies with liberal ones. He introduced DACA during his 2012 reelection campaign and earned himself the nickname “Deportation Chief” for his implementation policies.
And while some supporters have praised Biden's policies to protect illegal immigrants inside the United States, they are concerned about those outside U.S. borders.
“Access to the asylum system is a fundamental human right,” said Ahilan T. Arulanantham, co-director of the Immigration Law and Policy Center at the University of California, Los Angeles School of Law. “It's not too late for Biden to fulfill his campaign promise of restoring the asylum system and creating protections and opportunities for undocumented people in the United States.”
White House spokesman Angelo Fernandez Hernandez said the Biden administration has “repeatedly taken action within its authority to secure the border, expand legal pathways, and make our immigration system more fair and just.”
Biden is preparing to debate Trump later this month and is expected to emphasize his efforts to stop new immigrants from entering the country while keeping families in the United States from leaving.
But it remains to be seen whether American voters will make that distinction.
