By Will McCorkle | President Joe Biden’s latest announcement of an executive order that would allow undocumented spouses of U.S. citizens to remain in the country and obtain a work visa is an excellent decision.
It is a wise move for his re-election campaign, but more importantly, it is a strong moral decision, which has been lacking in such policies recently. It will also strengthen the U.S. economy and society.
Undocumented spouses of U.S. citizens are in a category that should not even exist, but unfortunately it does. There is often a great difficulty of changing one’s status even after being married depending on the circumstances and administration. In some situations, a spouse needs to leave the country for several years to be able to legalize his or her status. This separates husbands and wives – and perhaps even more tragically – it separates children from their parents.
The order is a wise political decision from Biden. He has often lived in an echo chamber and has thought that if he just moves further to the right and tries to appease conservatives, he will win. This is apparent in his policy towards Gaza, where he’s ignored his more anti-war base consistently, and instead, continued to support Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. This is also clear in his latest executive order at the border, which greatly curtails asylum and sets a dangerous precedent. The Republicans will still say he does not support Israel enough and wants open borders. He does not gain any support for his conservative policies. What he has done is further alienate his base and lost the youth vote.
But the immigration order is one of the first decisions he has made recently that could be positive for his reelection. He has, unfortunately, largely ignored the issues related to undocumented immigrants and providing them a pathway towards citizenship. This order makes a small step in that direction and could help him recover some support among some immigrant and Latino communities where he has been losing ground.
There has been some understandable exacerbation among undocumented immigrants since new asylum seekers have been able to get work visas while waiting on their cases (which I think is the right policy). However, oftentimes people who have been living undocumented in the country for years have been excluded, and there seems to be a double standard. This new policy begins to address this disconnect.
More importantly, Biden’s new order is the correct moral decision. Families should not be separated due to immigration policy. We should be beyond that in 2024. If we want to be a nation that stands by the values of freedom, justice and liberty that we will celebrate in just a few weeks, we cannot allow husbands and wives, parents and children to be separated due to arbitrary immigration policies.
As a nation, it is also to our benefit. We are not just allowing migrants to stay or come in out of the goodness of our hearts. Our society and economy depend on it. We have a worker shortage and declining birth rates. We need greater immigration for our economy and society to thrive.
This executive order is a common-sense move that can help people obtain work visas, come out of the shadows and be able to more fully be part of the American economy. I hope President Biden continues to make decisions like this. If so, he might have a chance to win in November and save our republic in the process.
Summerville resident Will McCorkle teaches educational foundations and social studies education at a Charleston college.
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