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The U.S. immigration system remains broken and in desperate need of comprehensive reform, but the Biden administration’s recent action to provide a path to permanent residency, and eventually citizenship, for hundreds of thousands of undocumented spouses of U.S. citizens is “a great first step” according to John Oswald, the owner of an Asheville-based defense contractor.
Oswald offered his assessment during a national online press conference hosted Thursday morning by the American Business Immigration Coalition, American Families United and the group FWD.us.
As NC Newsline reported previously, President Biden announced on June 18 that he would make use of his authority to institute a “parole-in-place” process for approximately a half-million undocumented spouses of U.S. citizens – a move very similar to action taken by President George W. Bush to benefit spouses of U.S. military personnel.
The deportation protections to those married to a U.S. citizen are a one-time action that will allow noncitizen spouses and their children to apply for a lawful permanent residence — a green card — under certain requirements.
To qualify, a noncitizen must have resided in the U.S. for 10 years as of Monday, June 17, 2024, and be married to a U.S. citizen since that date as well. That spouse who is a noncitizen also cannot be deemed a security threat.
Thursday’s press conference featured presentations from an array of directly impacted spouses and business owners who praised the action for, respectively, allowing them and many of their employees to “come out of the shadows.”
Ashley DeAzevedo, a New Jersey small businesswoman who has been married to Brazilian national for 12 years, described the dilemma she and her husband have faced throughout their marriage. She said that, contrary to a popular belief sometimes promoted in film and television, the marriage did not provide a path for her husband to gain legal status. Instead, the couple learned that he would have to return to Brazil and wait at least 10 years before he would be eligible to apply for legal status in the U.S.
Multiple speakers described DeAzevedo’s situation as typical of the impossible dilemmas in which hundreds of thousands of families find themselves. Todd Schulte, president of FWD.us, said the average spouse benefiting from the new policy has been in the U.S. for 23 years. He called the new policy “a tremendous step forward to keep families together.”
In describing the benefits that the new policy will provide to his business, Oswald said that his company – Mills Manufacturing, which manufactures parachutes for the U.S. military – is hugely dependent on immigrant workers and regularly struggles to attract qualified employees.
His ideal workforce numbers around 185, but he’s presently only able to employ around 150 (roughly two-thirds of whom are non-native-born) – a number that forces him to regularly turn down contracts he would prefer to accept. Oswald said he was hopeful that the change would help enable him to close that gap.
In addition to spouses, the new policy is also expected to affect roughly 50,000 children who are noncitizens and have an immigrant parent married to a U.S. citizen.
For those children to qualify, they have to be 21 or younger, unmarried and the marriage between the parents has to have taken place before the child turned 18.
In addition to the provisions benefiting spouses and children, the President’s June 18 action also included a new policy to aid DACA recipients. It will allow those recipients who have graduated from an accredited university and have an offer by a U.S. employer for a highly skilled job to quickly qualify for one of the existing temporary work visas, such as an H-1B visa.
Organizers of today’s event seemed well-aware of its coincidence with tonight’s presidential debate in Atlanta. Without issuing any endorsements, all expressed appreciation for the President’s action and expressed concern about the talk of mass deportation that has been a centerpiece of the former President Donald Trump’s campaign.
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