President Joe Biden announced new measures Tuesday allowing hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrant spouses and children of US citizens to remain in the country while applying for permanent residency, thus enabling these families to stay together.

Typically, noncitizen spouses are required to apply for spousal visas from abroad — a lengthy bureaucratic process. Though processing times can vary based on everything from evidentiary requests to global pandemics, according to the US Citizenship and Immigration Services website, I-130 spousal visas currently take an average of 14.5 months to process. In other words, families going through the traditional application method while the US citizen spouse is based domestically can expect to be separated for upwards of a year.

To qualify, undocumented spouses must have resided in the US for a decade or more as of June 17, 2024. The status will also apply to noncitizen children who are under 21 and whose noncitizen parent is married to a US citizen. The White House estimates the policy will benefit some 500,000 spouses and 50,000 children of US citizens.

Biden also announced the easing of visa restrictions for certain noncitizens who study at US universities and then obtain “high-skilled” job offers.

The new policy comes two weeks after Biden signed an executive order barring asylum claims from most migrants who cross the US-Mexico border illegally, and a week after a coalition of rights groups sued the Biden administration, accusing it of violating US immigration policy and international law with these asylum restrictions.

All of these developments took place against the backdrop of a deeply divisive presidential campaign season, throughout which border security has loomed as a key concern for voters. Illegal border crossings have surged in recent years along the US-Mexico border—the world’s busiest migration corridor according to UN figures.

The Biden Administration has increasingly found itself at loggerheads with Republican lawmakers and presidential hopefuls over the burgeoning immigration issue. Following the collapse of a major immigration reform bill earlier this year, his administration has resorted to smaller executive actions.