The White Nationalists’ attack on immigrants, their determination to shut down the border completely and deport 11 million undocumented individuals who have been living and working and contributing in the U.S. for decades, is linked to the movement to ban abortions and contraception and force women to bear children, even on pain of death or poverty.

In contrast to the claim that we need to shut down the border because migrants are taking jobs, there are an estimated 8 million job openings that Americans can’t or won’t fill. And if you look around at who is getting the Nobel prizes, becoming our valedictorians and salutorians and winning the national contests, it is almost invariable an immigrant or a child of an immigrant.

On the other hand, the White Nationalists see the need to force women to have babies – preferably Christian ones or at least adopted into Christian homes – to meet the declining birth rate and need for low-cost labor.

This is the “common cause” of Capitalists and White Christian Nationalists. The common denominator between these two seemingly contradictory objectives is cruelty and control.

You only have to remember back to when infants and toddlers were yanked from their mothers’ arms and then purposefully lost in the system – rendered orphans  – and children were shoved into cages and detention centers under Trump’s family separation policy that they are more than happy to restore.

From his first day in office, President Biden has made an effort to reverse those policies, reunite families, while at the same time doing his level best to restore order at the border. This is despite Republicans’ refusal to pass comprehensive immigration reform, which would fund the immigration judges, infrastructure, border agents and technology and would streamline the process for adjudicating asylum claims that now can take six years or more. As it is, 80 percent of asylum claims are rejected. And Biden has just infuriated progressives (and prompted another lawsuit) by imposing a policy to shut the border when illegal arrivals exceed 2,500 a day and to immediately dismiss asylum claims so people are immediately “repatriated.”

This week, exactly 12 years after Obama introduced the DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) program, President Biden is introducing a policy to help keep families together.

Under this new policy, an undocumented person who is legally married to a U.S. citizen and who has lived in the United States for 10 years as of June 17, 2024, can apply for permanent legal status without first leaving the country and their family for what could be years. Undocumented stepchildren of a U.S. citizen can also apply for legal status.

The president would exercise his authority to grant the undocumented spouses “parole in place,” a designation that would permit them to remain in the country, work legally and gain access to a pathway to permanent residency.

“President Biden believes securing the border is essential and in expanding lawful pathways and keeping families together,” an administration official told a press briefing. “Two weeks ago, he announced additional actions to secure the southern border when entry levels are high, after congressional Republicans voted two times against the fairest, most comprehensive reform in decades. Entries are down, repatriations are up.”

Congressman Tom Suozzi, who has long advocated for commonsense, humane immigration reform and was invited to the White House for Biden’s announcement, had appealed to the president to use his authority to address this problem and applauded this proposed action.

“Everyone already believes that if you marry a U.S. citizen, then you become a citizen. For over one million people living in the U.S. for the last 10 years, that has not been the case,” said Suozzi (NY-03). “Today’s action rights that wrong and infuses our businesses with legal labor from neighbors who have lived here for over a decade. It keeps families together and strengthens our economy.”

He added. “These executive orders are important, but now we must pass substantial bipartisan legislation.”

The administration estimates the new policy could benefit about 500,000 undocumented spouses and 50,000 undocumented stepchildren of U.S. citizens.

Providing a legalized status and work permits would go far to address the nation’s labor shortage, spur economic activity, and add to the government’s tax coffers, generating as much as $16 billion in GDP growth. We need more workers to bolster Medicare and Social Security because there are too few workers to support the numbers of retirees who are living longer. It would also reduce the cost and burden on municipalities in providing services.

Biden made this proposal on the 12-year anniversary of the DACA program, which has provided 800,000 Dreamers the ability to work lawfully, pursue an education, open businesses, and contribute their enormous talents to make our communities better and stronger.

But their status is precarious since Trump rescinded DACA in 2017, told Congress to come up with a better plan, and then nixed every plan then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) proposed until McConnell said he wouldn’t bother.

It’s the same with the Comprehensive Immigration Reform that was so meticulously worked out with Conservative Republicans – which omitted the “poison pill” of any pathway to citizenship in order to make it more salient to Republicans – only to have Trump, yet again, instruct Republicans to kill the bill because he wanted to be able to pound the border crisis in his election campaign.

“I’m proud of the contributions of Dreamers to our country and I am committed to providing Dreamers the support they need to succeed,” Biden said.  “That’s why I  directed the Department of Homeland Security to take all appropriate actions to ‘preserve and fortify’ DACA, and that’s why we continue to vigorously defend the DACA rule in court. That’s also why last month, the Department of Health and Human Services took the historic step of expanding access to affordable, quality health coverage to DACA recipients through the Affordable Care Act.”

In a further action, Biden directed Homeland Security to join the State Department to more efficiently process employment-based nonimmigrant visas for eligible individuals, including DACA recipients and undocumented noncitizens, who have graduated from an accredited U.S. institution of higher education.

“By clarifying and enhancing the existing process, the Department of State’s policy will give U.S. employers increased confidence that they can hire the talent they need, and that they will be able to quickly get to work,” the administration said. “We recognize a national interest to making sure people who are educated in the U.S. are able to put their skills (to work) in the U.S. for benefit of our country.”

In a White House press call with Biden officials, the Biden administration expressed confidence that his new policy would withstand the inevitable White Nationalist lawsuits that will come.