President Biden will sign immigration bills that don’t create a pathway to citizenship for the country’s roughly 11 million illegal immigrants, but it’s still a priority for his administration.
Biden was pressed Tuesday on whether he would give his presidential approval to an immigration measure that came across his desk even if it didn’t provide citizenship opportunities as he and congressional Democrats prepare to release a proposal this week.
“Yeah, there’s a whole range of things that relate to immigration,” Biden told CNN during a televised town hall.
Biden specifically referenced reforms he has enacted regarding refugees and asylum-seekers, as well as more changes he’d like to make.
Biden, for instance, is planning to increase refugee admissions from former President Donald Trump’s record-low cap of 15,000 to 62,500 from October 2020. This week, his administration will permit 25,000 asylum-seekers with active cases under Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” program into the country while their applications are processed by the immigration court system.
“Everyone is entitled to be treated with decency, with dignity,” he said. “And we don’t do that now, for the first time in American history.”
“We, the United States, used to do our part,” he added. “If you had a refugee bill by itself, I’m not suggesting that, but there’s things that I would deal [with] by itself but not at the expense of saying I’m never going to do the other. There is a reasonable path to citizenship.”
The forthcoming Democratic legislation reportedly makes it possible for illegal immigrants to become citizens. Biden’s already-published U.S. Citizenship Act of 2021 forges an immediate pathway to citizenship for farmworkers, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals recipients or “Dreamers,” and Temporary Protected Status holders.
Tuesday’s wide-ranging town hall was broadcast from Milwaukee and touched on topics from the coronavirus pandemic to how former President Barack Obama had never invited Biden into the White House residence.
Biden’s trip to Wisconsin marks his first official presidential travel of his term. The 2020 Democratic convention was supposed to be hosted in Milwaukee during summer 2020 but was canceled because of the pandemic.
