Immigration in a Biden Administration

It appears that the election is over and that Joe Biden will be the next President.  Making  immigration one of his signature issues, President Trump implemented a dizzying array of “tough on immigrants” measures.  Day in and day out, the Trump administration dedicated an incredible amount of time and attention to immigration.  One can expect some significant changes in immigration in a Biden administration.  Here is the Biden immigration platform.   One can only hope that the Biden administration  focuses on immigration but in a very different way than the Trump administration.

Ted Hesson for Reuters (“Factbox:  Here are six things that Joe Biden will likely do on immigration”) and Rebecca Rainey & Bryan Bender for Politico (“Biden will stop the border wall and loosen immigration again: Immigration policy would be the most dramatic and immediate reversal of Trump policies when Biden takes office.”) review some of the immigration policy changes likely to come.  One key question is whether Biden will push for immigration reform in his first term or, like President Obama, put it on the back burner, with reform never achieved.

One thing is clear.  The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy now has a future.  As Rainey and Bender report,

“Biden said he will restore the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which grants deportation relief and work permits to those brought illegally to the U.S. as children. The Trump administration tried to end the program, but that effort was blocked by the Supreme Court.”

Hesson cautions that “[w]hile some measures could be quickly rescinded, the multitude of Trump administration changes could take months or years to undo.”

KJ