President Joe Biden delivers remarks on Bipartisan Infrastructure Law funding that will replace the Baltimore and Potomac Tunnel, Monday, January 30, 2023, at the Falls Road Amtrak maintenance building in Baltimore. (Official White House Photo by Adam Schultz)
A few Senate Democrats are lobbying President Joe Biden to get as many migrants into the United States as possible and ensure they stay indefinitely before he leaves office and President-elect Donald Trump enters the White House.
This week, Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV), Ben Ray Luján (D-NM), and Alex Padilla (D-CA) sent a letter to Biden asking him to reward large groups of illegal aliens and other migrants in the U.S. with immigration benefits before he exits office next month.
“In addition to supporting strong border security, we are eager to ensure that DACA recipients, TPS holders, and other immigrants who are critical members of our communities and economies are not forgotten during this busy time,” the Senators write.
President Biden has the ability to take action now that protects TPS holders, DACA recipients, and hardworking families who've spent years contributing to our communities.
I'm calling on him to finish that work and give immigrant families the certainty they're counting on. pic.twitter.com/crxbQGV1PA
— Senator Cortez Masto (@SenCortezMasto) December 3, 2024
In particular, the Senators want Biden to allow hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens enrolled in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program to extend their status for the maximum length of time that is allowed by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
Similarly, the Senators are asking Biden to extend and redesignate several countries for Temporary Protected Status (TPS) so that newly arrived migrants from such countries can stay in the U.S. while those already in the U.S. can stay even longer than currently granted.
“What I take is what I hear from this incoming administration, they’re going to engage in mass deportation and nobody is safe,” Cortez Masto told MSNBC this week. “That’s why I’m asking the administration to come in now to protect some of the immigrant communities — TPS recipients, DACA recipients.”
Already, the Biden administration has grown the foreign-born population by nearly seven million since January 2021 — ballooning the number of foreign nationals living in the U.S. to an unprecedented nearly 52 million.
