When President Barack Obama first announced his illegal Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program 12 years ago today, he could at least plausibly claim that his unilateral executive action was not an amnesty.

Yes, illegal immigrants who had entered the country as children were given legal status and work permits, but DACA by itself did not create a path to citizenship by itself, and the status and permits would have to be renewed in two years. 

The program President Joe Biden is announcing today, another abuse of the parole authority, is an amnesty, as it will create a path to citizenship for an estimated 500,000 illegal immigrants that did not exist before.

Under statute, an illegal immigrant who is married to a U.S. citizen may apply for a green card, but they first have to return to their home country, and leaving the United States after living here illegally can trigger a 10-year ban for admittance. Biden’s new plan uses his parole authority to waive the requirement that illegal immigrants married to a citizen have to first leave the country before they can apply for a green card.

Under the new Biden amnesty, illegal immigrants must have been living in the United States for ten years to qualify for the program, but this is a completely made up number found nowhere in statute. Biden is essentially creating brand new amnesty programs without congressional approval on the fly.

Thanks to Biden’s catch-and-release policies on the southern border and his refusal to deport all but the most violent illegal immigrants from the interior of the country, the foreign-born population in the U.S. has surged from 45 million in January 2021 to 51.6 million today. This 6.6 million immigrant surge in less than four years is the fastest growth of the foreign-born population of the U.S. in the nation’s history. 

Voters are not happy with Biden’s border crisis. Democratic cities across the country are being bankrupted by the costs of having to house, feed, educate, and provide healthcare for the millions of migrants Biden is importing into the country.

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It has gotten so bad that a solid majority of voters, 62% according to CBS, now favor “a new national program to deport all undocumented immigrants currently living in the U.S. illegally.” That majority includes 60% of independents, 53% of Hispanics, 74% of voters without a college degree, and 58% of voters with more than a college degree.

It is unclear who Biden thinks his new amnesty will impress. Voters who want to continue down the path of unlimited illegal immigration already know Biden is their candidate. It is hard to avoid the conclusion that Biden hopes that some of those he is letting into the country illegally, or setting on a path to citizenship, will somehow convince others to vote for him … or maybe vote illegally themselves. By definition, no illegal immigrant is a stranger to violating American law.