On his first day in office, the new President of the United States of America, Joe Biden, 78, addressed several decisions concerning the country’s immigration policy made by his predecessor. Six out of 17 memorandums and proclamations signed on the day of the inauguration concerned the immigrants.
Thanks to the steps taken almost immediately by Biden, the US Department of Homeland Security has halted the deportation of some non-US citizens for a period of 100 days. The controversial program “Remain in Mexico” which aimed to stop migration from this country has also been canceled. Trump’s previous policy relied on the assumption that all asylum-seekers trying to cross the US border came from Mexico or Central America and they were thus forced to wait in Mexico pending American court hearings, very often in dire conditions. The program aimed to deter migrants and return them to their country of origin and this was partly achieved. As a result, 60,000 migrants had to return home following the implementation of the program in January 2019.
Joe Biden has also ordered a halt to the construction of the border wall with Mexico.
Aside from these changes, immediately after being sworn in, Joe Biden lifted the travel ban instigated by Trump in 2017 imposed on many mostly Muslim countries including Eritrea, Yemen, Nigeria, and Sudan, acknowledging that these restrictions were discriminatory. He also reversed the decision to exclude people residing in the US illegally from the 2020 census and retained the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program which protects children entering the country from deportation.
Nevertheless, the most important immigration reform is yet to come.
Biden will seek to prepare a bill which will bring the proposals of his immigration policy together. The bill will aim to have legal status and provide a path to citizenship for all migrants who arrived in the U.S. before 1st January 2020 which may affect up to 11 million people. Biden also intends to shorten the amount of time family members have to wait to obtain a Green Card.
The UN’s top senior officials welcomed the implemented and planned changes. The UN Secretary-General, António Guterres, called them ‘positive steps’ and Filippo Grandi, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, said: “Long a strong advocate for refugees, Mr. Biden has made important commitments to restoring the US refugee resettlement programme and ensuring that human rights and humanitarian values are at the centre of the US asylum system.”
António Guterres expressed his hope for the strengthening of multilateral cooperation as well as that the US would join the “Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration,” the first intergovernmental negotiated agreement, prepared under the aegis of the UN. This aims to create one common approach to international migration policy and introduce the same standards of dealing with migration worldwide.
While in 2016 President Obama planned to admit 110,000 refugees, Donald Trump significantly slashed this number every year and in 2020 he achieved the lowest refugee admission level on record – just 15,000. In turn, Joe Biden has reportedly pledged to raise this number to 125,000.
