Joe Biden’s administration has announced plans to open a citizenship pathway to undocumented spouses of Americans, in a move that could affect upwards of 500,000 people, according to officials.
The White House announced on Tuesday that the government will allow certain spouses of US citizens who do not have legal status to apply for permanent residency and eventually, citizenship, in the coming months.
To qualify, they must have lived in America for at least 10 years and be married to a US citizen – although there is no requirement on how long they have to have been spouses for.
Spouses eligible to apply for this scheme have been in the US for 23 years on average, according to The White House.
If an immigrant’s application is approved, they will have three years to apply for a green card, and receive a temporary work permit – all whilst being shielded from deportation.
An estimated 50,000 children who are not citizens but have a parent who is married to one could also potentially qualify for the same process, senior officials said.
The announcement comes two weeks after President Biden unveiled a crackdown at the US border with Mexico that limits asylum processing once they reach 2,500 per day.
Image: Migrants at the US-Mexico border. Pic: AP
The limit went into effect immediately, as current figures stand at around 4,000 per day.
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The government faced fierce backlash over the crackdown from advocate groups and many Democratic politicians, with President Biden’s new initiative predicted to try and find some sort of middle ground and show that he supports a more humane immigration system.
At an event at the White House later today, the president is also expected to set out new regulations that allow beneficiaries of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals programme – set up by Barack Obama – and other young immigrants to qualify more easily for long-established work visas.
Key battleground in upcoming election
Immigration is a key issue in the upcoming presidential election.
Sky News’ chief correspondent Stuart Ramsay witnessed the plight of immigrants trying to make it to North America riding on a freight train nicknamed “La Bestia” (The Beast”) or sometimes the “Train of Death”.
At least 200 people attempted to clamber onto the train in the dead of night, but a short while into the journey Mexican immigration officers boarded the train alongside armed soldiers and national guard and worked their way through the railway cars trying to persuade people to get off.
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8:23
Sky News aboard ‘The Beast’
Despite the difficulties of the journeys – and the new brutal interventions by the Mexican authorities – the inexorable move north goes on, Ramsay said.
Biden’s Republican rival in the upcoming election,Donald Trump, has previously said that he would seek to end automatic citizenship for children born in the US to immigrants living in the country illegally.
The former president also pledged to launch the largest deportation effort in US history, focusing on criminals but aiming to send millions back to their home countries.
In an interview with Time magazine, he said that he would also reinstate the Title 42 policy – first brought in during the COVID-19 pandemic – which allowed US border authorities to quickly expel migrants back to Mexico without the chance to claim asylum.
Trump campaign spokesperson Karoline Leavitt called President Biden’s new programme “amnesty” in a statement and reiterated Trump’s deportation pledge, saying he would “restore the rule of law” if reelected.
Tune into Sky News’ special programme with Yalda Hakim on the migration crisis tonight at 9pm.
Donald Trump has posted an AI-generated image of himself dressed in papal regalia on his Truth Social platform – just 11 days after the death of Pope Francis.
Uploaded onto his account early on Saturday morning, it shows the US president with a large gold cross on a chain around his neck.
From there, it was published, without comment or explanation, on the White House X and Instagram accounts and, though it drew fierce criticism, it was liked more than 100,000 times.
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It comes just a few days after the world leader joked that he’d like to be the pontiff.
Last week, he was asked by reporters on the White House lawn who he would like to succeed Francis and he replied: “I’d like to be Pope. That would be my number one choice.”
He went on to say that he did not have a preference, but there was a cardinal in New York who was “very good”.
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0:19
‘I’d like to be pope’
Mr Trump was quickly accused of mocking Pope Francis’sdeath, but, by noon, UK time, the post had been liked more than 58,000 times on Instagram.
User comments, however, were mostly negative, with one saying that the image “isn’t funny. It’s not satire. And it’s not harmless”.
Another simply called it “disgusting”, while other reactions included “disturbing”, “disrespectful” and “offensive”.
On X, where the picture was liked more than 78,000 times, a user commented that Mr Trump was “making a mockery of the pious”, while another judged it “not a wise decision”.
The Argentinian, who became pope in 2013, died on Easter Monday at the age of 88 due to a stroke and heart failure.
Last weekend, the president was criticised for wearing a non-traditional blue suit for Francis’s Vatican funeral and chewing gum during the ceremony.
However, his meeting in St Peter’s Basilica with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy before the outdoor mass got under way was dubbed “Pope Francis’s miracle” by members of the clergy.
Image: Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy met in St Peter’s Basilica. Pic: Ukrainian Presidential Press Office
Mr Trump’s own religious views have long been a matter of speculation.
He was raised as a Presbyterian and publicly identified with it for most of his adult life, before, in October 2020, he renounced it and said he now considered himself a non-denominational Christian.
Many have questioned the depth of his faith, but that hasn’t stopped him appealing to conservative Christians and the Christian right, particularly evangelicals, some of whom have helped him get elected twice.
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Earlier this year, Mr Trump shared a bizarre AI-generated video on his Truth Social platform showcasing what appeared to be a vision of Gaza under his proposed plan.
The footage showed the area transformed into a Middle Eastern paradise with exotic beaches, Dubai-style skyscrapers, luxury yachts and people partying – and featured Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Elon Musk.
She was working as a production assistant at the time.
Weinstein has strenuously denied all allegations, and Ms Haley also testified at Weinstein’s initial trial.
Image: Miriam Haley. AP file pic
Image: Harvey Weinstein on Wednesday as he appeared for his retrial. Pic: AP
The 48-year-old was testifying in a Manhattan court when Weinstein’s defence lawyer Jennifer Bonjean questioned her account of the incident.
In court, Ms Bonjean asked why Ms Haley would agree to Weinstein’s invitation to his apartment after testifying about his previous behaviour, including her alleging that he barged into her home.
Ms Haley then became emotional after being asked how her clothes came off before Weinstein allegedly pulled out a tampon and performed oral sex on her.
She said Weinstein took off her clothing, but she didn’t recall the details, before Ms Bonjean asked: “You removed your clothes, right?”
Ms Haley then told jurors that Weinstein “was the one who raped me, not the other way around” – to which his lawyer said: “That is for the jury to decide.”
She then started crying and said: “No, it’s not for the jury to decide. It’s my experience. And he did that to me.”
Sky’s US partner network NBC News reported that Ms Haley said during the exchange: “Don’t tell me I wasn’t raped by that f*****g asshole.”
Judge Curtis Farber then halted questioning and sent jurors on a break. Ms Haley’s eyes were red and her face was glistening as she left the witness stand.
In February 2020, Weinstein was found guilty of sexually assaulting Ms Haley – along with raping former actor Jessica Mann in a New York hotel in 2013 – and sentenced to 23 years in prison.
His conviction for the two crimes was overturned in April after an appeals court ruled the trial judge unfairly allowed testimony against Weinstein based on allegations that weren’t part of the case.
After the appeal ruling, Weinstein was charged with raping one woman and forcing oral sex on two others.
Two of the charges are those he faced during the original trial, while the third – one of the charges of forcing oral sex on Kaja Sokola – was added last year.
Weinstein denies all allegations, and his lawyers argue his accusers had consensual sexual encounters.
Regardless of the outcome of the retrial, he will remain in prison over a 2022 conviction in Los Angeles for a separate count of rape. His lawyers are also appealing this sentence.
In any other government, at any other time, political expediency would have demanded his immediate sacking.
To have shared sensitive military information on a group chat is a most reckless error of judgement.
Bad enough that the information reached the inbox of a US journalist – who knows who else might have accessed the information in what is a commercially available app? China, Russia? Iran, the very country that backs the Houthi rebels who were under attack?
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Initially, Donald Trump defended Waltz as a “good man” who had “learned a lesson”. The president will have known, though, that he’s a man who has fundamentally weakened him.
Waltz’s mistake put the lives of US service personnel at risk and called into question the credibility of his ultimate boss.
The emoji-laden group chat read like the stuff of excited youngsters breathlessly sharing gossip.
It was recklessness over responsibility at the heart of government, and it reflected on the commander-in-chief and his judgement in appointing Waltz in the first place.
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1:50
‘Nobody was texting war plans’ – Hegseth
To keep him in post for weeks following the scandal looked like an acceptance, of sorts, and it didn’t look good. If there are questions about the circumstances surrounding Waltz, there are, too, about Trump’s defence secretary, Pete Hegseth.
Hegseth was also part of the Signalgate group chat and more.