PHOENIX — Rodrigo de la Rosa was only 5 years old when he crossed the U.S.-Mexico border with his father and three brothers. Growing up in South Phoenix, he had what he calls “just a regular American life” — until, as a teenager, he learned he was undocumented.
“When you turn 16 and you can’t get a regular job, that’s when you realize, ‘Oh, I’m different,’” he said.
In his mid-20s, de la Rosa married Ashley de Alba, who was born and raised in California by Mexican and Salvadoran parents. But marrying a U.S. citizen was not enough to fix his immigration status. He could apply for a green card but would need to leave the country first — and risk getting stuck in Mexico for a decade or even permanently.
That changed Monday, when the federal government began accepting applications for a sweeping new Biden administration program allowing undocumented spouses of American citizens to apply to regularize their status without leaving the U.S. The White House estimates the program applies to 500,000 immigrants across the country, as well as to an additional 50,000 of their children (the stepchildren of their American citizen spouses).
To qualify, applicants must have been married to a U.S. citizen prior to June 17, when the program was first announced; not have a disqualifying criminal history (which includes all felonies and a number of other crimes, such as domestic violence and most drug offenses); and prove they have lived continuously in the United States for at least 10 years (the government estimates the average is more than two decades).
Those whose applications are approved will be granted a form of legal relief known as “parole in place,” which protects them from deportation and allows them to apply for work permits, green cards and eventually citizenship.
This has the potential to fundamentally transform the lives of millions.
“We would be able to actually do the things that we want to do,” said Ashley de Alba, de la Rosa’s wife. “We have a lot of high goals to reach.”
If de la Rosa were to get his papers, the list of ways it would change their life is long. De Alba is seven months pregnant with their first child, a girl. While de la Rosa has mostly been working painting houses and building scaffolding for stucco crews, he got good grades in school and has a passion for photography and media; a work permit and a green card would allow him to get steadier, safer work with insurance and retirement benefits.
“It would give me the opportunity to provide for my family better and to have the career that I want,” de la Rosa said.
It would also clear away pesky but meaningful obstacles to the bureaucratic aspects of married life, such as joint bank accounts and home ownership. It would free de la Rosa to travel internationally without worrying about how to get back into the U.S. — including to Mexico, to see his older brothers and the nieces and nephews he’s never met. And it would allow de la Rosa and de Alba to have the wedding of her dreams in Mexico: “A big, Mexican wedding — like a really fancy, Jalisco-style wedding,” de Alba said.
In swing states, 'paying attention'
In a swing state like Arizona, the parole in place program also has the potential to meaningfully move the needle in November’s presidential election. De Alba voted for Donald Trump in 2020 — she said she admires his business acumen, believes the economy was in better shape when he was in office, and appreciates the fact that he’s “not afraid to speak his mind.” She was prepared to vote for him again in November, but now she’s undecided.
“Biden’s administration is the one that put this in place, so I’m very grateful for that,” de Alba said. The fact that Joe Biden himself dropped out of the race increased her interest in the Democratic ticket, though she doesn’t yet know enough about Vice President Kamala Harris to have finalized her decision.
“I want to see how permanent this is,” de Alba said. “Is this just a ploy for votes? Or is this something that they’re actually taking seriously and going to follow through with? Then I’ll make my decision.”
According to FWD.us, a pro-immigration group that advocated for the program, Arizona has some 15,000 people eligible for parole in place. Though they themselves can’t vote, they are all married to U.S. citizens who can, and are otherwise embedded in families and communities full of citizens who will benefit indirectly from the policy.
Considering that Biden won Arizona in 2020 with 10,457 votes and considering that polling shows razor-thin margins between Harris and Trump, the political impact of the parole in place program could be decisive.
Erika Castro, an undocumented community organizer with the Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada — another swing state with a large and long-settled immigrant population — said the parole in place program has helped energize Latino voters.
“People are paying attention,” she said. “They want to know what candidates are doing to actually improve their quality of life, and this is something that makes them feel like their vote is taken seriously.”
Some 60,000 immigrants eligible for parole in place live in swing states, according to the estimates from FWD.us.
One of them is Foday Turay, who lives in Philadelphia with his wife and young child. Turay — a member of American Families United, a nonprofit group that lobbied for the executive action — was brought to the U.S. from Sierra Leone as a child and now works as a prosecutor for the office of the Philadelphia district attorney. He says his wife, who is from New Jersey, plans to vote for Harris in November exclusively because of the program.
“We are a single-issue household, and that issue is immigration,” Turay said. “My wife and her entire family were never going to vote. They’re going to vote now because they realize somebody they love will benefit from this program.”
As consequential as DACA — and also facing challenges
Immigrant rights advocates describe parole in place as the largest and most consequential form of relief for undocumented immigrants since 2012’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals or DACA, the Obama administration’s program offering work permits and protection from deportation to immigrants brought to the U.S. as children. (Many who are applying for parole in place are, or were at one point, DACA recipients, including de la Rosa and Turay.)
Like DACA, parole in place was instituted by way of executive action from the president, which makes the program inherently precarious.
Republicans have strongly condemned the program, with Trump calling it “mass amnesty” on Truth Social and Sen. Josh Hawley calling it “lawless” and “outrageous” on Fox News. America First Legal, the legal organization led by Stephen Miller, the architect of many of Trump’s immigration policies, promised to challenge the program in court, and a future Trump administration would almost certainly rescind it.
The possibility of a Trump victory also gives some lawyers and advocates pause when it comes to encouraging people to apply for the program. Although many potential applicants (including those with DACA status) are already on the federal government’s radar, those who aren’t may not want to turn over large amounts of personal information to a government that may soon be run by a candidate who has promised indiscriminate mass deportations.
“I think people need to tread carefully and file [an application] only after understanding all the risks and potential roadblocks,” said Mo Goldman, an immigration lawyer in Arizona.
But for those families who are set on applying, the program has the potential to rectify what they view as a long-standing injustice. De Alba points out that her husband has spent his entire adult life working and paying taxes in the U.S. yet is excluded from many of the advantages she has access to.
“Why? Just because I was born here? I could have been born in Mexico, too, but just because I was born here, I can do all these things that make my life a lot easier. That makes no sense,” she said. “I just want him to have the same opportunities that I have.”
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