ImmigrationU.S. Immigration Policy Changes Expected Under Biden
The incoming administration of President-elect Joe Biden could swiftly reverse an array of President Donald Trump’s immigration policies, many of which remain among the most contentious initiatives of his administration.
The incoming administration of President-elect Joe Biden could swiftly reverse an array of President Donald Trump’s immigration policies, many of which remain among the most contentious initiatives of his administration.
Biden could overturn many guidelines using the same mechanism Trump employed to implement them: executive orders. Others, however, will require more than a policy declaration, experts say.
In the last four years, Trump authored more than 400 regulatory actions through his executive power.
Michele Waslin, program coordinator at the Institute for Immigration Research at George Mason University in Virginia, told VOA the list includes sweeping travel restrictions, changed immigration enforcement priorities, overhauled asylum rules, an emergency declaration for border wall construction and successively reduced caps on refugee admissions.
“In theory, presidential proclamations and executive orders can be rescinded by the new president; however, in many cases, the change will not be immediate since people will need to be installed in the agencies, guidance and field manuals must be updated, and plans will need to be made to carry out the changes,” she said.
Waslin said undoing other policies is expected to be more complex.
“Policies that were changed through regulations will likely require new regulations and a new public comment period,” she explained.
The First 100 Days
Within the first 100 days, Biden is expected to repeal Trump’s executive order that barred most nationals from certain countries from visiting the United States. Initially, the restrictions targeted citizens of some majority Muslim nations, but they were expanded to include other countries Washington regards as security threats.
The latest order includes Myanmar (Burma), Eritrea, Kyrgyzstan, Nigeria, Sudan, Tanzania, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria and Yemen, along with Venezuela and North Korea.
Another change that experts said would be simple to make is reopening the DACA program to all qualified applicants.
DACA is short for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, a program launched by the Obama administration that shields from deportation people brought illegally to the United States as minors.
Under the Trump administration, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) stopped accepting new DACA applications.
In 2019, the Trump administration proposed a plan promising a “fair, modern and legal” overhaul of the American immigration system. It did not address the DACA program and Congress did not act on it.
It is widely expected that a Biden administration will extend protection from deportation as well as work authorization to hundreds of thousands of additional unauthorized immigrants who arrived as children.
