4 December 2020

Since taking office in January 2017, consistent with the strong rhetoric and promises made during the 2016 United States presidential election, the Trump administration has considerably reshaped the U.S. immigration system. According to Migration Policy Institute (MIP), the administration has undertaken more than 400 executive actions on immigration—acting unilaterally on issues of border and interior enforcement, asylum and refugee admissions, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), actions involving the Department of Justice and the immigration court system, and changes to vetting and visa processes, to name a few. Most recently, with the implications of the COVID-19 pandemic on the mobility of populations worldwide, the Trump administration implemented a series of travel bans and suspension of visa issuance in certain categories, further blocking and slowing down the admission of immigrants into the United States.

Assuming the electors chosen to represent the states in the Electoral College vote in favor of the President-elect Joe Biden on December 14, 2020, he will become the 46th President of the United States. Among other political, social, environmental and economic issues, the Biden administration will face significant challenges when it comes to the U.S. immigration and refugee policy. While many of the unilateral administrative actions taken by President Trump can be reversed, his presidency will continue to have a long-lasting effect on the U.S. immigration system that will require long-term improvements to the structures in place. The Biden campaign has laid out its plan for reversing and modernizing the U.S. immigration system.

In theory, undoing the executive actions taken by President Trump will be straightforward, as President-elect Joe Biden will have the executive power to undo previous administrations’ executive orders. For example, Joe Biden has promised on his first day in office to overturn President Donald Trump’s travel ban that initially targeted Muslim-majority countries. The first order went into effect on January 27, 2017 and was later superseded by an executive order issued on March 6, 2017. In light of COVID-19, President Donald Trump signed a series of executive orders to impose travel restrictions and visa issuance on foreign nationals. It is anticipated that at least some of these orders will be reversed immediately, lifting the temporary bans in place and effectively resuming the admission of immigrants into the United States safely and securely.

The process of overturning more complicated immigration policies introduced by the Trump administration may take months or even years to reverse, considering the bureaucratic nature of the U.S. political system, looming legal challenges in court and lobbying efforts by the opposition groups. Despite the upcoming challenges, the Biden campaign has promised that within the first 100 days the new administration will:

• Immediately reverse policies that separate parents from their children at the border, which left hundreds of migrant children scattered across the U.S. while their parents were detained or deported. This action also promises to end the prosecution of parents for minor immigration violations and prioritize the reunification of children separated from their families. According to the Washington Post, the parents of 545 minors who were separated from their families within the last three years remain unfound;

• End the restrictive asylum policies put in place by the Trump administration, starting with the termination of the Migrant Protection Protocols which have forced many asylum seekers and migrants fleeing persecution in their home country to wait for a decision on their immigration case outside the U.S. Such inhumane treatment of vulnerable populations has caused violence, exploitation and destabilization in Mexican towns along the U.S.-Mexico border. To address the mismanagement of the asylum system and the fallout of these policies, the Biden campaign has promised to allocate the necessary resources to ensure asylum applications are processed fairly and efficiently while treating families and children with respect. In addition, President-elect Joe Biden has promised to foster public-private cooperation with faith-based shelters, non-governmental organizations and legal non-profits to address immigration issues through a multilateral approach;

• End prolonged, expensive and indefinite detention programs for migrants by reinvesting in case-management programs that support migrants in their U.S. immigration process. According to legal scholars, there are humanitarian and financial benefits in relying on case management services over detention programs;

• Reverse President Trump’s public charge rule, which significantly expanded the grounds of inadmissibility for which a person could be denied a green card, visa, or admission to the U.S.;

• Redirect federal resources for building a wall along the U.S.-Mexican border towards smart border enforcement efforts, such as improving screening infrastructure at ports of entry. The exact costs of building a wall are debated by different experts and analyses, but it is undoubtedly costing taxpayers billions more than initial contracts suggested when the construction began in 2017;

• Reinstate the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. President-elect Joe Biden has promised to explore legal options available to protect Dreamers and their families from separation, as well as ensure Dreamers are eligible for federal student aid. Included in Biden’s proposal is providing access to community college without debt and an opportunity “to invest in HBCU/Hispanic Serving Institution/Minority Serving Institutions, which will help dreamers contribute even more to our [U.S.] economy.”;

• Protect individuals in Temporary Protected Status (TPS) and Deferred Enforced Departure (DED) holders from being returned to countries of origin. According to research, the majority of the individuals with TPS status have lived in the U.S. for decades and have been vetted by the government countless times. The Biden campaign also promised to offer a path to citizenship “through legislative immigration reform”;

• Restore humane enforcement priorities and practices while ensuring that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) representatives abide by professional standards of conduct. The Biden campaign promised to direct enforcement authorities to protect the public safety and national security of our nation, rather than focus their efforts on targeting innocent immigrant communities. Such policy would also protect sensitive locations from immigration enforcement actions, such as hospitals, schools and places of worship;

• Protect immigrants who served in the military and their families from deportation. This will include the creation of a parole process for veterans who have been deported by the Trump administration since 2017;

• Restore the Task Force on New Americans which worked to support the integration of immigrants into local communities through providing support on a range of social and economic processes;

• Collaborate with regional leaders and representatives to address the factors driving emigration from the Northern Triangle. President-elect Joe Biden aims to meet with representatives of El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico and Canada to effectively address regional challenges and prepare a multi-national plan to address them.

Apart from the listed immediate actions, the Biden campaign aims to effectively modernize the U.S. Immigration system to streamline the administrative processes while effectively attracting immigrants that ultimately strengthen the well-being of the U.S. and its economy. Perhaps the most significant policy proposal of the Biden campaign is working with Congress to create legislation that will provide a roadmap to citizenship for nearly 11 million undocumented immigrants currently residing in the U.S. Part of Biden’s long-term immigration strategy includes a reform of the temporary visa systems, mainly greater employment flexibility for foreign workers in select industries based on labor market necessities. Further, the Biden administration would support legislation that would allow seasonal agricultural workers to apply for green cards, thus opening up a path to citizenship. In collaboration with Congress, efforts to eliminate immigration caps for recent graduates of Ph.D. programs in STEM fields, as well as offer foreign graduates of U.S. doctoral programs a green card will be encouraged by the administration in efforts to retain highly skilled workers in the U.S. Immigrant visa expansion plans would also allow local municipalities and counties to petition for additional immigrant visa numbers to support local labor market needs. When it comes to family-based immigration, the Biden administration hopes to prioritize family unification policies and legislations, as well as preserve the annual Diversity Visa lottery system in place. He vows to decrease the processing times of applications for VAWA self-petitions, U-visas and T-visas and increase the number of visas available annually.

Because immigration policy is a multifaceted issue that involves the federal, state and local levels of government involvement and enforcement, the Biden campaign hopes to focus its efforts on not only reversing the ill-advised policies set forth by the Trump administration on the executive level but also leave a legacy of actions that will rebuild the faith and value of the U.S. immigration system. We can expect the Biden administration to work closely with non-governmental organizations, legal non-profits and local community support programs to prioritize humane treatment and support of migrants in need. Most importantly, President-elect Joe Biden will appoint professionals within their respective fields to lead enforcement efforts and policy-making within the U.S. immigration system, while working on the international level with respective governments to address the root causes of migration.