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Almost as soon as President Biden announced a major executive action in June to put more than 500,000 people on a path to US citizenship, immigrants who did not qualify under the plan began pushing to be included.
U new policy — unveiled before Biden dropped out of the presidential race as he tried to bolster his progressive credentials — would protect undocumented spouses of U.S. citizens from deportation if they have lived in the country for the past decade, have no disqualifying criminal convictions and Pass a verification process to ensure that they do not pose a threat to public or national security.
The program would allow these spouses, many with children here and deep roots in their communities, to stay in the United States and work legally. They are also allowed to access the immigration benefits available to spouses of US citizens. Biden cast the change as a moral imperative to keep families together, as well as an economic benefit to bring more workers out of the shadows.
Formal regulations to implement Biden’s policy could be released every daywith applications expected to open later this month.
But Biden’s proposal leaves out many people who immigration advocates say are equally worthy of protection but do not meet the proposed criteria. That includes spouses who followed current rules and voluntarily left the country to apply for re-entry, and are now outside the U.S. A Biden administration official said last month that the issue was under review.
Other immigrants would be barred from participating in Biden’s plan because of decades-old border offenses or because they haven’t passed a US consular vetting process.
Christopher Sánchez, 24, shows a photo of his father, Isaías Sánchez Gonzalez, who was denied a visa in 2016.
(Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Times)
Advocates for such families estimate that more than 1 million people married to American citizens cannot access the path to citizenship for various reasons.
Adriana Gutiérrez, 41, and husband José, 43, are among those falling through Biden’s program, which relies on an authority known as “words in place.”
José, who asked that his last name not be used, entered the United States illegally more than 20 years ago. He met Gutiérrez almost immediately. They married and now live in the Sacramento area with their four children.
They lived a peaceful life, obeying the law. But the lawyers advise them not to apply for a green card because they could instead bring unwanted attention to José’s situation.
That’s because shortly before the couple met, José had tried to cross the border illegally with the birth certificate of an American cousin. He was caught, deported and punished with a lifetime re-entry ban. A few days later, he crossed into the United States illegally.
“We are together, but we live in this shadow,” said Gutiérrez. “It seems unfair that we have to pay such a heavy price for something that was done more than 20 years ago.”
Others would not receive protection under Biden’s plan because they tried to follow previous immigration rules.
Immigrants who enter the country legally and marry US citizens can obtain legal residency and, later, US citizenship. But as a penalty for skirting immigration law, those who enter illegally and marry must leave the country to adjust their immigration status and usually wait at least a decade before being allowed back. In practice, many receive waivers that allow them to speed up the process and be reunited with their families.
Celenia Gutiérrez (no relation to Adriana) said her husband, Isaías Sánchez Gonzalez, left their Los Angeles home and three children in 2016 for a visa interview in Juarez, Mexico. He assumed that he would soon be readmitted and reunited with his family.
Instead, he was prevented from returning because, after the interview, a consular officer suspected that he belonged to a criminal organization, a claim he denies.
“I dedicated myself to doing good. I have never had problems with the law or the police,” said Sánchez Gonzalez. I believe the consular officer may have suspected that his tattoos – of the Virgen de Guadalupe, comedy and tragedy theater masks, and the Aztec calendar – were gang-related.
“I like tattoos, but if I had known the problems they cause, believe me, I wouldn’t have them,” he said.
After the denial, his wife, who was studying to be a nurse, was forced to postpone her schooling and get a job to provide for two families while fighting depression.
Sánchez Gonzalez, 46, now lives in Tijuana. His wife and children visit one or two weekends a month.
Celenia Gutiérrez, 41, believes her husband could have qualified for Biden’s spousal protection if he had just stayed in the United States instead of trying to rectify his legal status.
Celenia Gutiérrez shows a photo taken in June with husband Isaías Sánchez Gonzalez, second from left, and her children Christopher Sánchez, 24, far left; Brandon Sánchez, 13, and Anthony Sánchez, 19.
(Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Times)
“We decided to get married so we could get his papers,” she said. “We don’t want him to be deported. We’ve tried to do everything right, and it’s always been successful.”
Shortly before Biden announced the program, his administration fought a legal battle against an American citizen from Los Angeles who separated from her husband after he went to El Salvador for a visa interview and is was rejected, despite his assurances of having a clean criminal record. .
The government claimed – based on his tattoos, an interview and confidential law enforcement information – that Luis Asencio Cordero was a member of a gang, which he denied. In June, the conservative majority of the Supreme Court ruled against the couple, finding that Asencio Cordero’s wife, Sandra Muñoz, had not established that her constitutional right to marriage extends to living with him in the United States.
Due to the uncertainty of re-entry, many immigrants have chosen to stay in the United States and continue to risk deportation.
American Families United, established in 2006 to advocate on behalf of American citizens married to foreigners, is urging the Biden administration to offer a review of more complicated cases, including those of immigrant spouses in the United States who know they would barriers to re-entry. , and those who have already left the country for a consular interview and were denied abroad.
The group believes that the verification process and interviews by consular officials can be too subjective and unaccountable. Such decisions are rarely reviewable by federal courts, although immigrants denied entry while in the United States can appeal.
“We take discretion,” said Ashley DeAzevedo, president of American Families United. The organization has a membership list of almost 20,000 people, most of whom are families with complex cases. “It is very difficult to have 10 years of presence in the United States, be married to a United States citizen and not have some form of complication in your immigration history.”
In an interview last month with the Times, Tom Perez, a senior adviser to the president, said the administration has been considering what to do about immigrants who have tried to legalize their immigration status and have ended up separate It is not known how many such families exist, he said.
“How do we deal with people who actually follow the rules in place and are in Guatemala or wherever they might be?” he said. “This is an issue that is right on the table.”
Al Castillo, 55, a Los Angeles man who asked not to be identified by his middle name, has been separated from his wife for two years after she left the country to apply for permanent residency under the rules .
She has not been denied re-entry, but found the bureaucratic process so complicated and nerve-wracking that she is not sure whether she will be allowed to return or qualify for protection under the Biden program. Afraid of taking the wrong step, she now finds herself in limbo, her husband said.
The rule, “unless it is written in the right way, will not be able to help,” Castillo said.
When Biden announced the program, he said he wanted to avoid separating families.
“Under the current process, undocumented spouses of American citizens must return to their country of origin … to obtain long-term legal status,” the president said. “They have to leave their families in America, with no assurance that they will be allowed to return.”
Shortly after Biden announced the program, former President Trump’s re-election campaign slammed it. In a statement, the campaign’s national press secretary Karoline Leavitt called “mass amnesty” and he said it would lead to an increase in crime, invite more illegal immigration and guarantee more votes for the Democratic Party.
Meanwhile, Vice President Kamala Harris, who is now against Trump, released a statement calling the action “a significant step forward” and saying that those who will benefit deserve to stay with their families.
In a call with DeAzevedo and other advocates last month, Rep. Lou Correa (D-Santa Ana) said that protecting immigrants who are married to US citizens is as much an economic issue as it is about being on the right side of history.
Rep. Lou Correa and wife Esther, far right, with U.S. Senate candidate Loretta Sanchez, greet supporters in Santa Ana.
(Gary Coronado/Los Angeles Times)
“Do you want to keep the American economy strong?” he said. “We need more workers. And what better worker could we bring to the mainstream than those who have been here 10, 20, 30 years working hard, who have children, grandchildren, have mortgages to pay, have followed the law, paid their rates?