Immigration policies announced by President Biden June 17 may provide people living in the U.S. without proper documentation a pathway to gain legal permanent residence if their spouse is a U.S. citizen.
Across the country, approximately half a million non-citizen immigrants will be affected by these policies, according to a Fact Sheet released by The White House.
In Wisconsin, there are an estimated number of 70,000 people without proper documentation, according to data collected by the Migration Policy Institute.
These policies are particularly impactful to the state because of how they may affect the main driver of the state’s economy — dairy farms, according to Wisconsin Farm Bureau Executive Director of Government Relations Jason Mugnaini.
In order to be eligible for this program, non-citizen immigrants must have resided in the country for at least 10 years, be married to a U.S. citizen, not pose a security threat and meet all other legal requirements in place. The most suitable immigrants for this program have resided in the country for about 23 years as of June 17, 2024, according to the Fact Sheet.
Furthermore, the program may benefit Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients and other Dreamers, according to the Fact Sheet. If a DACA recipient or Dreamer has earned a degree at an accredited U.S. institution of higher education and has received an offer of employment in the country, they may use these policies to receive a work visa with greater ease.
This program utilizes a policy called parole-in-place to create an easier transition for those pursuing citizenship or work visas, according to Lead Project Attorney at the Community Immigration Law Center Natalia Lucak.
Currently, there are limited ways that a non-citizen immigrant can take to reach this goal, according to Director of Immigration Justice Clinic at the University of Wisconsin Law School Erin Barbato.
“Even though they are not leaving and reentering, it allows for them to almost apply for an entry while they remain in the U.S.,” Lucak said. “While they remain here, they’re able to be paroled and then they’re able to apply for a green card.”
Before an immigrant may apply for citizenship status, they must first obtain an immigrant visa which authorizes them to travel into the U.S. to gain legal permanent residence — denoted by a green card.
While the possession of a green card signifies approval to live and work in the country indefinitely, it does not define an immigrant as a citizen and thus green card holders may not reap the benefits of being a citizen. For instance, non-citizen immigrants could still be at risk for deportation, according to the Immigrant Legal Resource Center.
In the case that an immigrant enters the country without authorization and then gets married to a U.S. citizen, they have two options to receive their legal permanent residence.
First, they may choose to face the immigration bars set by the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigration Responsibility Act of 1996. Outlined in this act, for any immigrant that resides in the country illegally for over a year they must return to their home country for 10 years before they may be eligible for an immigrant visa.
The other option includes applying for a waiver to allow them to avoid this 10-year inadmissibility bar. But this process is often complicated, costly, timely and many people are not deemed to satisfy the requirements, according to Barbato.
“Even if you’re going through that waiver process right now, that process is taking like three to four years,” Barbato said. “It’s incredibly backlogged, expensive and really tough on families…”
This parole-in-place policy creates a pathway for people without proper documentation to pursue citizenship or work visas without facing these bars. Rather than being forced to return to their home country for 10 years, an immigrant may remain in the country while undergoing steps to have a lawful entry.
In the past decades, there has been a significant increase in the number of immigrants entering Wisconsin which has greatly increased the state’s Latino population — from 93,000 to 447,290, according to a Dairy Workers Study conducted by the School for Workers at UW.
Many of these new immigrants are drawn to working in dairy farms for multiple factors. Farms often provide housing that allows for workers to avoid the three to five-year rental history requirement needed for renting.
Additionally, the study found that immigration status is rarely discussed by farm employers and is treated like an “open secret.” This is especially alluring considering that approximately 75% of immigrants working on dairy farms have an unauthorized immigration status, according to the Dairy Workers Study.
These new policies will help aid obstacles employees encounter while working without proper documentation. For instance, working on rural farms often requires an employee to drive far distances without a proper drivers license, which could put someone at high risk of deportation. Furthermore, these workers will be able to access healthcare benefits rather than paying for services out of pocket, according to Mugnaini.
“They’re valuable members of the farm,” Mugnaini said. “I think that there are some really interesting opportunities for revitalization in rural communities from foreign workers coming to Wisconsin.”
While this program has yet to open for applications, there is a high chance it will be challenged by Congress since it was announced as an executive order, according to Barbato. Additionally, this program, similar to DACA, is threatened by any future president’s stance on immigration — just as it was created it can be overturned through executive action.
