Democratic lawmakers are pressing President Biden to grant amnesty to undocumented immigrants before they can be deported by a possible future Trump administration.
“We urge your Administration to take all available steps to expedite pathways to legal status for undocumented immigrants, providing security to the American businesses, communities, and families that depend on them,” reads a letter to Biden on Wednesday. which was signed by more than 80 people. legislators.
The letter comes as the White House continues to fight the ongoing border crisis, in which more than 7 million illegal immigrants have crossed the border into the United States since Biden took office in 2021.
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President Biden speaks with a member of the US Border Patrol as they walk along the border fence between the United States and Mexico in El Paso, Texas, on January 8, 2023. (JIM WATSON/AFP via Getty Images)
While the administration has promised measures aimed at stemming the flow, the more than 80 lawmakers in the letter urged the president to look ahead and guard against the possibility of a victory by former President Trump in the November election, arguing that the president needs take concrete measures. measures to protect the legal status of millions of undocumented immigrants.
“Deporting all of these people, as former President Donald Trump has threatened to do if re-elected, would devastate the American economy and destroy American families,” the letter says. “Alternatively, streamlining pathways for undocumented immigrants with no criminal records and deep ties to the United States to obtain parole or legal immigration status would provide stability for their families, require them to pay taxes and communicate with the U.S. government with regularity.”
Among the steps the president should take is simplifying the process that DACA recipients — those who entered the country illegally as children — can use to update their legal status, lawmakers argue. Other measures include allowing spouses of Americans to work while green card applications are pending and creating a process to grant parole to undocumented spouses of U.S. citizens.
President Biden, left, and former President Trump. (Getty Images)
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Trump has promised to deport millions of undocumented immigrants if he regains the presidency next year, going so far as to say he would use the National Guard to help carry out the massive operation.
“If I thought things were getting out of control, I would have no problem using the military,” the former president said in an interview with Time magazine last month. “We have to have security in our country. We have to have law and order in our country. And whatever gets us there, I think the National Guard will do the job.”
The possibility of another Trump term has apparently become more realistic in recent months, and a Wall Street Journal poll last month showed the former president with a lead in six of seven key battleground states.
Trump had a lead over Biden in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and North Carolina, according to the poll, with only Wisconsin, where the president had a three-point lead, the only outlier.
Republican presidential candidate Former President Trump speaks during a Buckeye Values PAC rally in Vandalia, Ohio, on March 16, 2024. (KAMIL KRZACZYNSKI/AFP via Getty Images)
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That possibility has some lawmakers pressing the president to act now, with the letter concluding that doing so would “provide much-needed relief to undocumented immigrants and the American businesses, families, and communities that depend on them.”
Neither the White House nor the Biden campaign immediately responded to Fox News Digital’s requests for comment.
