President Joe Biden is taking an expansive election year step to offer relief to potentially hundreds of thousands of immigrants without legal status in the U.S. It comes after the Democratic president's own aggressive crackdown at the southern border earlier this month that enraged advocates and many Democratic lawmakers. The White House says the Biden administration will allow certain spouses of U.S. citizens without legal status to apply for permanent residency and eventually citizenship. Senior administration officials say the move could affect upwards of half a million immigrants. Senators on Capitol Hill responded Tuesday to Biden’s immigration step. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, (D) Massachusetts, says she supports the president on this issue. “The president once again is doing what Joe Biden does best. He is using his tools to try to advance the values of the American people, and that means treating our families as important and helping those families that have mixed legal status on immigration,” Warren said. Sen. Bill Cassidy, (R) Louisiana, says the president is steeped in a political problem. “I think all these are both him trying to have his cake and eat it too, in the one sense saying he's going to shut the border down, but another sense reassuring his progressive left that that he's still going to be sensitive to letting people in. He's got a political problem, and he's got a political problem because it's going against the instincts of his advisers,” Cassidy said. Meanwhile, Sen. Sherrod Brown, (D) Ohio, says the good idea would be for Congress to pass the bipartisan border bill. “Well, the good idea is that Congress finally pass the bipartisan border bill, to secure the border and to pass an immigration bill. And presidents of both parties have failed. And I'm hopeful that we do that and make a real difference,” Brown said. Biden will speak about his plans Tuesday at the White House.