U.S. Senator Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., wants President Joe Biden to rescind his amnesty executive order for migrants who are in the country illegally.
Capito, a member of the Senate Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee, said Tuesday that she has joined 14 other Republicans in the U.S. Senate in asking Biden to rescind the order that would offer amnesty to some immigrants who are unlawfully present in the United States.
The 14 Republicans sent a letter to Biden Tuesday demanding the repeal of the order.
“We have previously challenged the legality of your administration’s parole authority and have sought to reform this authority to ensure that decisions regarding parole are restored to Congress’ original intent — ‘on a case-by-case basis’ to aliens who are not already present in the U.S.,” Capito and the 14 senators wrote in the letter to Biden. “Under your administration, the parole authority has been unlawfully used to circumvent screening and vetting, mass parole of illegal aliens after the cartels surge caravans at the border, and to circumvent normal refugee processing. These actions undermine the immigration laws Congress has passed, and they have eroded the rule of law at our southern border.”
Biden’s executive order was announced earlier this month and provides a pathway to citizenship to a half million migrants who are in the country illegally.
In his announcement, Biden said his administration will, in the coming months, allow certain U.S. citizens’ spouses without legal status to apply for permanent residency and eventually citizenship without having to first depart the country. The move could affect upwards of half a million immigrants, according to earlier reports from the Associated Press.
To qualify for Biden’s actions, an immigrant must have lived in the United States for 10 years and be married to a U.S. citizen. If a qualifying immigrant’s application is approved, he or she would have three years to apply for a green card and receive a temporary work permit and be shielded from deportation in the meantime.
Capito has repeatedly criticized the Biden administration’s border policies and the influx of migrants illegally into the U.S., which Republican lawmakers argue is a national security concern.
Capito said due to the “reckless policies” of the Biden administration there have been more illegal migrants to cross the southern border than the Obama administration and Trump administration combined. She said officials just arrested eight illegal aliens who have known ties to ISIS-K.