On his first day in office on Wednesday, President Joe Biden is signing several executive actions aimed at dismantling the Trump administration’s nativist legacy on immigration.
With the stroke of a pen, Biden will be able to disrupt some of Trump’s best-known and most controversial immigration policies: the travel ban, the construction of the southern border wall and his attempt to end protections for undocumented young immigrants through of Deferred Action for the Childhood Arrivals Program.
There is a great human impact on the termination of these policies. About 41,000 people were denied visas as a result of the travel ban. Almost 700,000 currently benefit from DACA. These actions mark the beginning of a transition towards what Biden promises to be a more welcoming era for immigrants in the United States.
But Wednesday’s actions are, in a way, the easy part. From now on, the real job of undoing Trump’s complex web of regulations and policy changes begins, presenting an initial test of Biden’s commitment to prioritizing immigration.
Trump built obstacles in Central America, on the border, in detention centers and in immigration courts that made obtaining asylum almost impossible for people fleeing violence in their countries of origin. He expanded immigration detention widely, quickly returning migrants to Mexico, prosecuting all immigrants caught crossing the border without authorization, and separating more than 5,500 immigrant families. And he undertook a silent and effective campaign to reduce legal immigration, using the coronavirus pandemic as an excuse for reject tens of thousands of visas and green cards.
The task before Biden is immense. It is expected that he will not only return to the Obama-era approach to immigration enforcement, which involved record deportations and an expansion of detention of families, but also to improve.
The executive actions of Biden’s first day on immigration are just the beginning. Here are the objectives of your executive actions so far:
1) Repeal Trump’s travel ban
Biden will issue an executive action to end Trump’s controversial travel ban on non-citizens of 13 countries. It also directs the State Department to resume visa processing and develop a plan to rectify the damage caused by the prohibitions, especially those that have failed to obtain an exemption and whose visas have been denied.
The policy, colloquially known as the “Muslim ban”, went into effect for the first time in January 2017 and has become one of Trump’s signature immigration policies. The ban has eased or completely stopped legal immigration from some countries that the previous government considered security threats, keeping families separated and even preventing the resettlement of refugees.
The ban has been changed several times in the face of numerous legal challenges, arguing that Trump had no legal authority to issue it and that he illegally discriminated against Muslims. The third version of the ban, ultimately upheld by the Supreme Court, prevented citizens of seven countries – Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria, Yemen, Venezuela and North Korea – from obtaining any type of visa, largely preventing them to enter the United States. (Chad was removed from the list of countries subject to a ban in April 2019, after meeting the Trump administration’s demands to share information with U.S. officials that could assist in efforts to examine foreigners.)
Trump expanded the ban last February to include additional restrictions on citizens of six more countries: Myanmar, Eritrea, Kyrgyzstan, Nigeria, Sudan and Tanzania. Although they were still able to visit the United States, the citizens of those countries were, for the most part, prevented from settling in the United States permanently.
2) Reaffirm protections for DACA recipients
Biden will issue a memo ensuring that the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program – a longtime target of the Trump administration – remains intact and urging Congress to approve permanent protections for the nearly 700,000 undocumented young immigrants who have benefited from it. His own immigration reform proposal, which he will send to Congress on Wednesday, would offer them a three-year path to citizenship.
Trump tried to terminate the Obama-era program in 2017, throwing DACA recipients into a kind of limbo in which they lived in fear of eminently losing their legal status and their ability to continue living and working in the U.S. without fear of deportation.
The Supreme Court thwarted this attempt last year, but its government continued to refuse new applications for the program, despite the fact that another 1.3 million immigrants became eligible. A court eventually ordered him to start accepting new applications, completely restoring the program.
But a lawsuit pending in the Texas federal court continues to threaten the program. A coalition of states, led by Texas, argued that former President Barack Obama had no authority to create the DACA, calling for it to be closed.
3) Stop the construction of the Trump border wall
Upon leaving office, Trump completed 450 miles of construction on the border wall – a physical reminder of his efforts to keep out asylum seekers and other vulnerable migrants. But despite what he promised in 2016, he did not build 1,600 kilometers of wall and Mexico never paid for it; instead, the burden of more than $ 15 billion fell on taxpayers and was partially transferred from the Pentagon’s budget without Congressional approval. And he was only able to build it by renouncing environmental and hiring laws and confiscating private land.
Biden promised during the campaign that “there will be no other wall built in my administration”. He will issue a proclamation on Wednesday, immediately halting construction and ending the national emergency declaration that Trump used to divert funds for the construction of the wall.
But terminating pre-existing construction contracts altogether can be tricky, especially as the Trump administration has been quick to draft more such contracts in its final days. This will likely require an agreement with each individual contractor, a lengthy effort, and payment for work already done.
There are also doubts about what happens to the nearly $ 1.4 billion that was diverted to finance the wall, but has not yet been spent. Biden’s executive order will require employees to determine the best way to redirect that money.
4) Terminate Trump’s attempt to exclude undocumented migrants from census counts
Biden will terminate the Trump memorandum to exclude undocumented immigrants living in the United States from the population count of the census for the purpose of redesigning congressional districts in 2021.
Doing so would have reduced the population count in areas where populations born abroad were traditionally established – mainly cities run by Democrats – and thus undermined their political power. But it may also have affected red states with large populations of immigrants, including Texas.
Biden will also ensure that the Census Bureau has enough time to complete an accurate count of each state’s population.
States currently design electoral districts, determining the areas that each elected official represents based on total population, including unauthorized immigrants. The current maps are to be redrawn this year, after the 2020 census results arrive, and the risks are high: each redistrict has a lasting influence on who is likely to win the elections, which communities will be represented in Congress, and ultimately which laws will be passed. If states cannot complete their redistricting efforts before the next elections, including the mid-term elections of 2022, the courts can intervene and draw temporary maps.
5) Reverse Trump’s efforts to increase immigration enforcement within the U.S.
Biden will revoke an executive order that allowed for a massive expansion of immigration enforcement within the United States.
Given that immigration agencies have limited resources, presidents typically identify which classes of immigrants should be prioritized for deportation. Under former President Barack Obama, this included people who posed a threat to national security, immigrants convicted of serious crimes and recent border crossers. But Trump’s executive order essentially eliminated those priorities, sending the message that no undocumented immigrants – including families and longtime residents – were safe from deportation.
Biden’s move on Wednesday will allow immigration agencies to return to Obama-era priorities.
6) Renew deportation relief for Liberians
Biden will extend temporary protection against deportation and work permits for Liberians under the Deferred Forced Departure (DED) program until June 30, 2022. Trump had threatened to end the program, questioning the future of 4,000 Liberians with DED status.
The civil war led thousands of Liberians to seek refuge in the United States from about 1989 to 2003 under the DED. But conditions in Liberia have not improved enough – the economy remains unstable and the country has been hit by an Ebola epidemic. Ending DED would constitute discrimination based on the race and nationality of Liberians, they argued in court.