President Biden signaled Wednesday that he is willing to forgo legalization for all illegal immigrants in the U.S. and instead pursue bills that would cover nearly a third of the population, comprised of illegal immigrant “Dreamers,” other long-time humanitarian cases and people working in American agriculture.
In his address to Congress, Mr. Biden touted the mass amnesty he sent to Capitol Hill earlier this year but recognized the low odds of getting that through.
If you don’t like my plan, let’s at least pass what we agree on,” he said.
He said the priorities should be Dreamers, the young adult migrants who came to the U.S. as children; those here under Temporary Protected Status, which is a temporary deportation amnesty; and farm workers.
Bills to cover those groups have already cleared the House, but face iffy chances in the Senate, where Republicans say more attention needs to be paid to border security.
Most estimates put the number of illegal immigrants in the U.S. at about 11 million. The House bills would offer citizenship rights to 3.3 million of them, according to the Migration Policy Institute.
Mr. Biden largely ignored the border in his speech and paid no attention to the record surge of migrants that’s overwhelmed the Border Patrol over the last few months.
He did say his plan he sent to Congress included “a lot of money for high-tech border security.”
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
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