The Biden administration’s first actions regarding immigration

Immigration has always been quite a controversial issue among the American population and during presidential elections. For instance, the two strongest candidates in the most recent presidential elections of the US (November 2020) had a diametrically opposite stance when it comes to immigration.

Now that President-elect Joe Biden (Democratic political party) took office on January 20, 2021, his ideals are likely to drastically change the immigration system again and he will surely take a different path than the Trump administration, which wanted to restrict the entry of foreigners in the US.

In fact, the Trump administration made more than 400 changes to immigration policies, reducing alternatives available to the most vulnerable immigrant communities and undocumented foreigners, and hindering processes for foreign workers and family members of American citizens.

Therefore, since Joe Biden contradicts Trump’s stance and states that immigration is extremely positive for the economy and the US’ international competitiveness, his administration aims to remove Trump’s restrictions and even reform the entire immigration system through an immigration bill, which is quite an ambitious proposal since the country has not had a comprehensive immigration reform for decades (1986).

President Biden, after being sworn in as president and delivering on his promises, reversed multiple restrictions on immigration through executive action. Let’s see some examples:

1. Trump’s travel ban

In 2017, when former President Donald Trump took office, he issued a series of executive actions substantially restricting the entry of citizens of Iraq, Iran, Somalia, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Sudan, among others, to the US. This restriction is also known as Muslim Ban.

One of President Biden’s first executive actions was to remove Trump’s Muslim Ban.

2. Exclusion of undocumented immigrants from the National Census

In the opinion of the Trump administration, immigrants who decide to cross borders without legal documentation should not be taken into account for social benefits or local programs such as the National Census.

Broadly speaking, the Census takes place every 10 years and allows the US government to distribute seats in Congress depending on the population density of each state, allocate federal funds, inter alia.

In July 2020, former President Trump proposed removing undocumented immigrants from the census, which could tremendously affect states with higher population density due to undocumented foreigners.

President Biden reversed Trump’s order to remove undocumented immigrants from the Census.

3. The construction of the border wall on grounds of National Emergency

One of former President Trump’s main proposals was to build a border wall between the US and Mexico to curb illegal immigration from Central America and increase protection at the borders.

Initially, former President Trump stated that Mexico would finance the border wall, however, this was not possible and he signed a National Emergency declaration to divert government funds for the construction of the border wall.

During his first day in office, President Biden halted the construction of the border wall and the diversion of federal funds for this purpose. The current administration plans to redirect these funds to other projects to also increase security at the US’ borders.

Do you need help with an immigration case?

Immigration policies change periodically depending on the purposes and goals of the US administration. Therefore, it is better to have the constant accompaniment of experts when starting your immigration journey.

If you have any questions about an immigration issue or relating to a case you may have currently in progress, then please don’t hesitate to contact us for a FREE Phone Consultation with one of our expert immigration attorneys.

Simply call Motion Law today at: (202) 918-1799.