President Joe Biden will speak about immigration on Thursday as reports suggest the administration will announce a new strategy that would permit migrants from several countries to enter the U.S. legally.
The Biden administration’s plan would create a legal pathway for migrants from Nicaragua, Cuba and Haiti who have financial sponsors in the U.S. to enter the country. It is modelled on other programs designed to help Ukrainians and Venezuelans enter legally, launched in October 2022.
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The expected announcement comes as the Republican-led House of Representatives has failed to elect a speaker in six ballots in the past two days amid serious divisions among the lower chamber’s GOP.
Republicans are likely to react with anger to the new legal pathway as they have criticized the similar program for Venezuelans.
Two U.S. and one Mexican officials spoke to Reuters on Wednesday about the plan, which would see the U.S. accept 30,000 migrants a month from Cuba, Nicaragua, Haiti and Venezuela under the humanitarian parole authority.
The new program would be coupled with disincentives for illegally crossing the border, sources familiar with the matter told CBS News. That would include the expulsion of migrants to Mexico under Title 42, a policy brought in during the COVID-19 pandemic that allows for the speedy removal of undocumented migrants.
Though Title 42 was set to expire, the U.S. Supreme Court has kept it in place pending litigation from Republicans in 19 states.
The plan will require the consent of the Mexican government, and Biden is due to meet President Andrés Manuel López Obrador at the 2023 North American Leaders’ Summit in Mexico City on January 9 and 10.
President Biden will also reportedly visit the U.S.-Mexico border next week, the first time he has gone there as president. Axios reported on Wednesday that the visit will take place near El Paso, Texas, before he travels to Mexico.
The U.S. and Mexican governments had agreed to a program that has seen the former accept 24,000 Venezuelan migrants each month under the parole authority, while Mexico has accepted Venezuelan migrants expelled from the U.S.
In November, Republican Senator Chuck Grassley and Republican Representative Jim Jordan condemned that policy. Grassley is the senior Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, while Jordan is expected to chair the House Judiciary Committee in the new Congress.
“The Department of Homeland Security (DHS)’s newly created categorical parole program for Venezuelan nationals is yet another misguided immigration policy of the Biden Administration and flagrant violation of immigration law,” the Republicans wrote in a letter to DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.
Grassley and Jordan added that the program “ignores congressional intent and departs from how past administrations have exercised case-by-case parole authority.”
The Biden administration’s new policy is likely to produce a similar reaction from Republicans. If the president announces the plan today, it will coincide with the House’s renewed effort to elect a speaker.
It remains to be seen if Republican Representative Kevin McCarthy will be able to strike a deal with his GOP opponents and secure the speakership on Thursday.
Newsweek has asked the White House for comment.
