Some of President Donald Trump's most hard-fought, hard-line immigration policies stand to be quickly unwound by executive orders in a Joe Biden administration.
Biden even has said he would end some enforcement measures that predate Trump, The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday.
Much of the Trump administration's immigration measures are able to be undone by executive orders, according to the report, but Biden did announce during his Democratic National Convention acceptance speech that he would provide a pathway for citizenship for the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants in the U.S.
"A Biden-Harris administration will reverse the Trump administration's cruel and senseless policies that separate parents from their children at our border and more importantly push legislative immigration reform that will modernize our immigration system," Biden campaign senior adviser Julie Rodriguez told the Journal.
Among the immigration policies Biden can unwind with executive powers, according to the report:
- Halting construction of the border wall.
- Travel bans from 13 Muslim-majority and African countries.
- A "wealth test" on green-card applications.
- Return to the 125,000 cap on refugees from the Trump administration's record low of 18,000.
- Sending asylum seekers who travel through Mexico back to their home country as they await a hearing.
- Restoring catch and release for asylum seekers, ending Trump's catch and detain policies.
- Sending troops to defend the U.S. border.
Even Obama administration policies might be reversed by a Biden presidency, as the Journal noted Obama deported more immigrants annually than Trump's administration has.
Biden has publicly supported halting deportations for the first 100 days of the administration, as proposed by democratic socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt. And Biden has vowed to wind down the border detention centers that opened during the Obama administration.
"Joe Biden understands the pain felt by every family across the U.S. that has had a loved one removed from the country, including under the Obama-Biden Administration," his website reads, according to the report.
The radical shifts are going to be confusing for immigrants, according to Department of Homeland Security official during the Bush and Obama administrations Theresa Cardinal Brown.
"If you're an immigrant, one day you're eligible and the next day you're not, and the day after that you are again," Brown told the Journal. "It's no way to run a government."
Trump has frequently called on a divided Congress to pass comprehensive immigration reform to make moves permanent.
Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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