Protections for the Undocumented

Protections for half a million: Early today, the Biden administration announced that it plans to protect the roughly 500,000 undocumented spouses of U.S. citizens. Under the new policy, those who are illegally here and have been for a decade, who are married to Americans, and who have no criminal record will have an expedited pathway to getting permanent residency and citizenship, free of some of the bureaucratic hurdles that had formerly been in place.

"Marrying an American citizen generally provides a pathway to U.S. citizenship. But people who crossed the southern border illegally—rather than arriving in the country with a visa—must return to their home countries to complete the process for a green card," reports The New York Times. "That means long separations from their spouses and families. The new program allows families to remain in the country while they pursue legal status."

The new plan will be announced at a ceremony later today commemorating the 12th anniversary of former President Barack Obama's Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which shielded young illegal immigrants from deportation and made it easier for them to obtain permits to be able to work legally. Though DACA has been closed to new applicants since former President Donald Trump tried to end it in 2017—and it's been in a state of legal limbo ever since, providing protections to existing recipients but leaving many feeling uneasy about its fate—President Joe Biden is expected to announce some work protections for DACA recipients in today's speech.

This looks a lot like an attempt to rehabilitate Biden's flagging image on the issue of immigration following his crackdown on asylum seekers at the border just two weeks ago. But, in a sense, it may also be what American voters have the most appetite for: Uncontrolled chaos at the border unsettles many voters, and the immigration issue has been rising to the top of people's priorities lately (if recent polling is any indication). But lots of Democratic voters and fence-sitters do broadly support letting nonviolent people who have already built lives in this country stay here and work—precisely the demographic Biden's plan intends to help.

Perhaps his attempt to split the difference on this issue will win over more voters, especially in crucial swing states that have a lot of mixed-status families, like Arizona. But, the politics of it aside, it's probably also the right thing to do if your goal is more Americans who work hard and readily assimilate.

Scenes from Austin: Two years ago, people worried whether Austin was going the way of Los Angeles or San Francisco. Now, it seems like the building boom, coupled with a slowing of real estate transactions due to mortgage rates being high, has cooled costs significantly. "Yes in my backyard" (YIMBY) advocates have, to a degree, gotten their way here, right as developers have poured an awful lot of money into the city.

QUICK HITS

• "What's revolutionary about polygenic screening is that it allows parents to take a batch of embryos conceived through IVF, have a report compiled for each one, based on their genetic risk factors, and then use these reports to decide which embryo to implant," writes Louise Perry for The Spectator. "Should we welcome a new kind of commercial product that will allow some people—mostly rich ones—to have healthier, happier and cleverer children? And should you—the reader—seek out such a product for yourself?"

• Related: Watch last week's Just Asking Questions, with Diana Fleischman, on this very topic.

• What's going on with the Sikh separatist assassination plots?

• Russian President Vladimir Putin will visit North Korea and attempt to curry favor there in order to secure more weapons for his war in Ukraine. His last visit to North Korea was all the way back in 2000, but the leaders of the two nations appear to be strengthening ties these days.

• The regulators are coming for your end-to-end encryption:

• Who asked for this?

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