A Joe Biden presidency would reverse many of the Trump administration’s signature immigration policies including cracking down on ...
A Joe Biden presidency would reverse many of the Trump administration’s signature immigration policies including cracking down on undocumented migration, limiting entry to asylum seekers and refugees, and striking down the DACA program, a conservative-leaning think tank says.
‘The contrast between President Trump and Biden’s immigration policies is stark,’ wrote Lora Ries of The Heritage Foundation.
‘If Biden were to become president, he would return to many of the same immigration policies in place during the Obama administration.
‘This would include protecting and expanding the DACA program, admitting at least 125,000 refugees annually and seeking amnesty for 11 million illegal aliens.’
If Joe Biden wins the presidency, he will undo the Trump administration's immigration policies and revert back to Obama-era initiatives like strengthening DACA, according to a conservative-leaning think tank. Biden is seen in Wilmington, Delaware, on Monday
According to the Biden campaign’s web site, a new administration led by the former vice president would ‘immediately reverse the Trump administration’s cruel and senseless policies that separate parents from their children at our border, including ending the prosecution of parents for minor immigration violations as an intimidation tactic, and prioritize reunification of any children still separated from their families.’
Court-appointed lawyers said on Tuesday that they have been unable to find parents of 545 children who were separated at the US border with Mexico early in the Trump administration.
The children were separated between July 1, 2017, and June 26, 2018, when a federal judge in San Diego ordered that children in government custody be reunited with their parents.
Children from that period are difficult to find because the government had inadequate tracking systems. Volunteers have searched for them and their parents by going door-to-door in Guatemala and Honduras.
More than 2,700 children were separated from their parents in June 2018 when US District Judge Dana Sabraw ordered an end to the practice under a ‘zero-tolerance’ policy to criminally prosecute every adult who entered the country illegally from Mexico.
The administration sparked an international outcry when parents couldn’t find their children.
Demonstrators last year protest outside the United States Supreme Court which heard arguments on the Trump administration's plan to terminate the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, program that shielded undocumented immigrants brought to the US as children from deportation.
Biden is also pledging to ‘end Trump’s detrimental asylum policies.’
Asylum is for people fleeing persecution for their race, religion, nationality, political beliefs or membership in a social group.
It isn’t intended for people who migrate for economic reasons.
Trump has called asylum ‘a scam’ and has introduced a string of policies against it since the US became the world’s top destination for asylum-seekers in 2017.
According to Biden’s web site, his administration would ‘restore our asylum laws so that they do what they should be designed to do - protect people fleeing persecution and who cannot return home safely.’
Biden is also promising to strengthen protections for children of undocumented immigrants who were brought to the United States at a young age - the so-called ‘Dreamers.’
The Trump administration tried to terminate the Obama-era program known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, but the Supreme Court earlier this year blocked the move due to procedural issues.
The White House has been devising plans to make another push to end DACA, though it was not immediately clear whether he would make the politically sensitive move before November’s election.
About 650,000 people are part of DACA, which allows young immigrants who were brought to the country as children to legally work and shields them from deportation.
‘Biden would also make “Dreamers” eligible for federal student aid (loans, Pell grants) and debt-free community college,’ Ries writes in her report.
Biden’s campaign web site confirms this claim.
Ries writes in her report that if Trump were to win a second term, his administration would be willing to discuss ‘amnesty’ with Congress ‘as part of a negotiation for other immigration amendments that he deems are needed.’
‘In a second term, President Trump would pursue merit-based immigration reform with Congress, navigate rescinding DACA while negotiating an amnesty with Congress (for anywhere from 800,000 to up to 11 million illegal aliens) and continue to secure the border in the face of strong COVID-economy immigration push factors,’ Ries writes.
Biden has pledged to undo the Trump administration's crackdowns on asylum seekers as well as the controversial family separation policies at the US-Mexico border. The image above shows a woman looking through the border fence in Mexicali, Mexico, in April 2019
A Biden administration, on the other hand, would ‘aggressively advocate’ for a path to citizenship for some 11 million undocumented.
A new administration led by Biden would also rescind what the campaign calls ‘the un-American travel and refugees bans, also referred to as “Muslim bans”.’
During Trump’s campaign for the presidency in 2015 and 2016, he called for a ban on Muslims entering the United States.
Shortly after taking office, Trump signed an executive order that suspended travel from Iraq, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Chad, and Yemen - effectively blocking immigration from those countries. Chad was later removed from the list.
Earlier this year, Trump expanded the list to include six more countries - Myanmar, Nigeria, Eritrea, Sudan, Tanzania, and Kyrgyzstan.
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