28 APRIL 2021

100 Day Progress Report on President Biden’s Immigration Approach

From an 80% decline in number of children in CBP custody to nearly 100 executive actions to undo Trump policies, Biden administration has made strong headway

WASHINGTON, D.C.— As President Biden prepares to deliver his address to Congress where he’ll ask Congress to support a path to citizenship for undocumented communities, the Immigration Hub issues its evaluation and tracking of the Biden administration’s progress on immigration, and its recommendations for future action. Despite Republican attempts to undermine the Biden administration’s efforts, and while major administrative policies and legislation are necessary to fully reset and rebuild the nation’s broken system, the president has made strong headway to safely and fairly manage migration and the border.

“President Biden inherited a country in crisis thanks to the dysfunction, corruption and cruelty of the previous administration,” stated Sergio Gonzales, Executive Director of the Immigration Hub. “This included a devastating pandemic, a faltering economy, and an immigration system set ablaze. From quickly building capacity so  that unaccompanied children are welcomed safely and into the care of their families to looking beyond our borders and working in partnership with our neighboring countries, the Biden-Harris administration has taken many commendable steps to right wrongs by reversing discriminatory travel bans and implementing a new immigration framework that actually works for America. There is still so much to accomplish in the near future and among the most immediate actions, we urge the president to redesignate TPS for Haiti. Ultimately, we remain steadfast that Congress must also send legislation to President Biden, creating a new path to citizenship for Dreamers, farm workers, TPS-holders and the many immigrant workers across the country who have long waited for our leaders to deliver a 21st century immigration system that lives up to the American promise.”

100 DAYS PROGRESS REPORT

Within his first weeks in office, President Biden sent the U.S. Citizenship Act to Congress that would rebuild and modernize our broken immigration system. The legislation would establish a pathway to citizenship for 11 million undocumented immigrants currently living in the U.S., prioritize keeping families together, growing our economy, responsibly managing the border with smart investments, addressing the root causes of migration from Central America, and ensuring that the United States remains a refuge for those fleeing persecution.

President Biden delivered nearly 100 immigration-related executive actions - 52 of them focused on undoing egregious Trump administration measures. Over four years, the Trump administration enacted over 1,000 policies with the sole intent of gutting all facets of our immigration system. President Biden has reversed many of these policies, begun the process of rebuilding, and restarted critical immigration programs. He issued nearly 100 immigration-related executive actions with over half of them focused on reversing measures enacted by the previous administration.

  1. Preserved and fortified the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. The Biden administration committed to take every effort to protect and fortify the DACA program and announced the issuance of regulations on DACA. 

  2. Terminated the discriminatory travel bans that prevented nationals from 13 predominantly Muslim and African countries from receiving visas. Under a new State Department process, nearly 41,900 people who were denied visas under the bans and were not issued waivers are now eligible to reapply. 

  3. On February 24, Biden terminated Trump’s April 2020 ban on all immigrant visa issuance except those for spouses and minor children of U.S. citizens and certain immigrant investors. The administration also allowed a similar ban prohibiting new visas for temporary workers and exchange visitors to expire at the end of March.

  4. Rescinded the public charge rule and stopped defending it in legal challenges. DHS codified earlier guidance, reversing a Trump policy which imposed a wealth test for immigrants applying for green cards and deterred eligible immigrant families from accessing benefits.

  5. Established the formation of the Family Reunification Task Force to work on reuniting the families of 445 children who were separated under the prior “zero tolerance” policy. The task force found 5,600 more files that may include more children separated from their parents. Sec. Mayorkas announced that they will facilitate reunification inside the United States for parents who were deported without their children.

  6. Rejected the previous administration’s citizenship civics test that intentionally made applying for and acquiring U.S. citizenship exceptionally difficult. The administration agreed to stop rejecting applications based on blank spaces in applicants’ forms. 

  7. Revoked a DHS memo encouraging enforcement against immigrants whose applications for permanent residence were denied. 

  8. The Department of Justice repealed Trump’s policy that cut off grants to so-called sanctuary cities. According to an internal memo reported by Reuters, the DOJ’s acting head of the Office of Justice Programs also “ordered staff to take down any pending Justice Department grant applications with similar strings attached and start the process over again.”

President Biden delivered affirmative actions to protect noncitizens in America whose home countries are in deep turmoil. 

  1. The administration issued a designation of Venezuela and Burma for Temporary Protected Status (TPS), making an estimated 323,000 Venezuelans and 1,600 Burmese in the United States eligible for work authorization and protecting them from deportation for at least 18 months. 

  2. Extended TPS for El Salvador, Haiti, Honduras, Nepal, Nicaragua and Sudan through October 2021.

  3. Extended the original designation of Syria for 18 months and redesignated Syria for 18 months, allowing Syrians who were not eligible for the previous TPS designation to qualify if they have been continuously residing in the United States since March 19, 2021, if otherwise eligible.

  4. Reinstated DED for Liberians, allowing an estimated 3600 Liberians to remain in the U.S. 

The Biden administration issued a 10-point plan to manage the border safely and humanely process people arriving to request asylum while addressing the root causes of migration. Progress has been made on various parts of the plan:

  1. Vice President Kamala Harris is overseeing diplomatic efforts to address the root causes of migration from Central America, ensuring leadership from the top and a whole of government approach to this central issue. Early successes include the deployment of a U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) team in April to scale up humanitarian efforts in response to the pandemic, recurrent droughts, food insecurity and the hurricanes that struck in late 2020, and early agreements with Guatamala and Mexico to cooperate on dismantling human trafficking and drug cartels. 

  2. Ended Trump’s Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), also known as “Remain in Mexico”, and opened six ports of entry for processing MPP families, with COVID-19 testing prior to entry, allowing over 9,100 asylum seekers who were forced to wait in Mexico for years to pursue their claims and remain in the US while their cases are adjudicated. 

  3. Restarted the Central American Minors Program so that children fleeing for their lives can begin the process of reuniting with family members without having to take a dangerous journey to the U.S. border. 2,700 children approved to travel prior to CAM’s termination by Trump will be the first group eligible to come to the U.S. 

  4. The administration is utilizing FEMA’s expertise in humanitarian response to identify shelter for children and HHS is leveraging almost 3,000 volunteers to welcome and care for unaccompanied children while HHS works to safely expedite their reunification with family or match them with a sponsor. 

  5. The number of children in CBP custody has dropped 80% since March and declined from a high of 5,767 on March 28 to a low of 1,741 on April 22 as more children are transferred into HHS custody. A number of emergency intake sites (EIS) are operational and while neither the administration nor child advocates consider this setting ideal, the first priority is moving unaccompanied children from unacceptable CBP locations to sites where HHS staff or local NGO contractors will register and take care of children, and provide physical and mental wellness checks, clean clothing, pillows, blankets and personal supplies. The administration has successfully worked to transfer children within 72 hours to HHS custody. 

  6. The administration is working to safely expedite the processing of children who can be released to vetted sponsors - with many already reunited with a family member or sponsor in the United States.

The Biden administration reformed Trump’s enforcement priorities to keep families together and allow individuals to present their cases to immigration judges in person instead of behind bars. However, more should be done in the coming days to decrease detention and state and local enforcement of immigration law. 

  1. Greater oversight of ICE: On Inauguration Day, DHS rescinded President Trump’s indiscriminate enforcement priorities and issued new, temporary priorities, which were operationalized on February 18. Although a step in the right direction, final guidelines issued by DHS should prioritize family unity and assess the totality of a person’s circumstances instead of relying almost exclusively on the presence of a criminal conviction. 

  2. Moving from a cruel and arbitrary enforcement system to one that keeps families together: ICE arrests have decreased by more than 60 percent, from an average of 6,800 monthly arrests in the last three full months of the Trump administration to 2,500 in February 2021, Biden’s first full month in office.

  3. Detention of noncitizens arrested by ICE decreased by more than two-thirds in the first 100 days. From an average of nearly 6,300 monthly book-ins from October to December 2020 to an average of 2,000 in February and March 2021. By February 26, no families were held at Burkes family detention center. 

TOP RECOMMENDATIONS FOR FUTURE ACTION

While the Immigration Hub will continue to advocate for a series of policy changes, not limited to this list, to improve the country’s immigration system, the following recommendations are among the most urgent to address:

  1. Ensuring passage of legislation this year that creates a pathway to citizenship for Dreamers, Temporary Protected Status holders, farm workers and other essential workers, including through budget reconciliation if Republicans continue to play politics with the lives of thousands of individuals who have been central to helping America get through the pandemic. 

  2. Designate Haiti, Guatemala, Mauritania and Cameroon for Temporary Protected Status.

  3. Issue a Refugee Presidential Determination of 62,500 so that resettlement agencies and refugees who are vetted may move forward on preparations for arrivals this fiscal year.

  4. Develop and announce a plan to terminate CDC’s Title 42 order and provide asylum seekers with the opportunity to apply for protection consistent with their due process rights under US law. 

  5. Issue more expansive DACA protections through regulation. 

  6. Disentangle local law enforcement from federal immigration enforcement by terminating all 287(g), Secure Communities and similar programs.

  7. The President’s budget request should significantly reduce detention overall and end the detention of families. The administration should take steps toward terminating all contracts with private prisons and state and country jails. 

  8. Make significant progress on the reunification of families who were separated under the Trump administration, and increase funding to ensure free legal counsel for children and other vulnerable people in removal proceedings. 

  9. Terminate removal proceedings and extend affirmative relief to essential workers and all individuals who were protected by the Day 1 Executive Order on the Revision of Civil Immigration Enforcement Policies and Priorities. 

  10. Halt all border wall construction and settle all pending lawsuits with ranchers who are contesting the takeover of their properties.

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The Immigration Hub is a national organization dedicated to advancing fair and just immigration policies through strategic leadership, innovative communications strategies, legislative advocacy and collaborative partnerships.