By Nicole Salgado and Nathaniel Hoffman
Love is one of the main drivers of migration, and it always has been. As a new Biden administration executive action providing legal relief to hundreds of thousands of undocumented spouses of American citizens rolls out, it is essential that we recognize the million beautiful love stories behind the policy.
Across the United States, for decades, American citizens have been forced underground, exiled abroad and separated from their spouses for a surprising reason. Most people assume that if you marry an American citizen, your vows convey the right to citizenship. Our book told the stories of American citizens, including Nicole, who fall in love with undocumented immigrants only to find themselves trapped in a legal labyrinth, stymied by their country’s long exclusion of their partners. This Biden policy will finally correct some of this tragic story.
Our 2013 book, Amor & Exile, documents the stories of modern couples who made tough decisions to be together despite our broken immigration laws. Some chose to stay in the U.S., risking one partner’s deportation on a daily basis. Some were separated by the government. Other families, including Nicole’s, chose exile, leaving the United States for 16 years to live together abroad, trading their citizenship and comforts of home for relative security.
Announced on the 12th anniversary of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), which offered some stability for people who came to the U.S. without documentation in their youth, this new policy promises to be a life-saving intervention for hundreds of thousands of American couples. And unlike with DACA, which is temporary and has proven legally unstable, the new Biden policy allows spouses who are undocumented to “parole in place” – an ominous-sounding term that means they can stay and work, and have a chance to adjust their status and to eventually become U.S. citizens. It has been successfully applied to military spouses who are undocumented.
All of this is clearly a welcome move for many mixed-status families. But it’s not perfect, comes way too late, and would still exclude many of the couples in our book, including Nicole and Margo. It also does not make up for the fact that the Biden administration has continued to militarize the border and further chip away at the right to asylum, including in the language of the executive action announcement itself.
Andrea Flores, a former administration official and vice president of immigration policy at Fwd.US, told the New York Times last week that there could be 1.1 million couples stuck in this limbo. Some organizations place this estimate at up to 2 million. But the administration’s announcement estimates that only about 500,000 will qualify under this new action. And in fact, many of the couples in our book would not have qualified, as their partners had not been in the U.S. for the required decade, or they may have other bars that exclude them from the relief.
Still, it’s a smart political move and it will definitely change the lives of hundreds of thousands of American couples, including the lives of their children, their extended families and their wider communities. Many of these families include DACA recipients as well, giving them a new option for a more permanent status.
In May 2001, then-President George W. Bush wrote to the Speaker of the House asking for an extension of 245i, a section of the immigration code that allowed undocumented people who were otherwise eligible for a visa – including a marriage visa – to apply from within the U.S., rather than being forced to return home and face a 10-year or permanent ban from the country.
“Dear Mr. Speaker: I am a strong proponent of government policies that recognize the importance of families and that help strengthen them. To the extent possible, I believe that our immigration policies should reflect that philosophy,” Bush wrote.
The 245i extension passed both houses of Congress and the House scheduled a debate to resolve differences with the Senate bill. That date was September 11, 2001.
Needless to say, the bill never passed. Since that fateful day in 2001, the U.S., a nation founded by immigrants, has become an increasingly hostile place for migrant families, even though 9/11 had nothing to do with our family immigration system – all of the 9/11 attackers flew to the U.S. with tourist or student visas.
The Biden administration is restoring a bit of dignity, a real sense of security, and a great chance at a future together to half a million American families with this action. That’s over a million love stories to be told. Let’s hear all of them, together, as a nation.
Salgado and Hoffman are the authors of Amor & Exile: True Stories of Love Across America’s Borders. In the book, Salgado tells her own story of exile with her formerly undocumented spouse. Hoffman, a former journalist, documents the stories of mixed-status marriages in the U.S. This essay represents their individual views.