At a White House event on Tuesday marking the 12th anniversary of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) initiative, President Joe Biden announced an executive order that some advocates are calling the largest immigration relief program since the Obama administration rolled out DACA in 2012.

Biden’s new Department of Homeland Security policy, if upheld in court, will protect roughly 500,000 undocumented spouses of U.S. citizens from deportation, allow undocumented spouses to gain work authorization and offer an easier path to long-term citizenship.

While opponents of Biden’s proposal have criticized the immigration order as part of the president’s political agenda. A statement from the Biden administration states, “These actions will promote family unity and strengthen our economy, providing a significant benefit to the country and helping U.S. citizens and their noncitizen family members stay together.”

Undocumented spouses will qualify if they have been in the United States continuously for at least 10 years and have been legally married to a U.S. citizen as of June 17, 2024. Once approved, applicants will have three years to apply for permanent residency and will be eligible for a three-year work permit. And under the new policy, applicants can now stay in the U.S. throughout the process.

For some local advocates who work on immigrations issues, the action is a welcome one.

“I don't have DACA,” said Illinois Workers in Action Executive Director Giselle Rodriguez, who co-founded the organization with her husband, who is a U.S. citizen. “My family arrived here in 2009. I’m married, and what this would mean to me, it’s going to change everything right now. I would have a path to get a work permit and legalize my status without having to leave the country. And this means everything for my family. I have two small children and it would just make everything better for us, for me not having to leave the country.”

Biden’s policy also expedites work visas for the tens of thousands of DACA recipients who arrived in the U.S. as children, and who are commonly referred to as “Dreamers.” To qualify, applicants must have earned a degree from an accredited U.S. college or university and received a job offer related to their degree from a U.S. employer.

“For the past six years, we haven’t really known if this is a program that's going to continue to stay,” said The Resurrection Project’s immigration organizer Laura Mendoza, who obtained DACA status when she was 24 years old. “As a homeowner, I think about, ‘What happens if I do get deported?’ There are a lot of unanswered questions, and so the ability to have a path really allows me to think long term about my life here in the U.S. and plan out my future.”

Granting more work visas is welcome news to Illinois Hispanic Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Jaime di Paulo, who supports Biden’s policy, but says there’s still a lot more work to do.

“Keep in mind that 52% of all Latino immigrant businesses in the United States are immigrant-owned,” di Paulo said. “A good percentage of those business owners are undocumented. So it’s a great opportunity for them to become legal because they’ve been paying taxes, they create employment, they create wealth in our communities. So why not give them the opportunity?”