28 FEB 2023

President Biden Has Delivered Robust Solutions to Restore America’s Immigration System

 Washington, D.C. –  As President Biden and former President Trump plan trips to the U.S.-Mexico border on Thursday, a stark split screen emerges, highlighting immigration as a central issue in the 2024 election. For more than two decades, Congress has failed to update America’s immigration laws despite growing economic demands, crucial labor shortages, expanding backlogs, and heightening challenges of global migration. The cracks of the nation’s immigration system were further exacerbated during former President Donald J. Trump’s term. According to a testimony by CATO Institute’s David Bier,

From January 2017 to January 2021, nearly 500 policies—large and small—were implemented to disrupt the legal immigration system’s normal operations. During this four-year period, the prior administration repeatedly attacked the rule of law, ignored court orders, and abandoned even the pretext of carrying out its duties to implement immigration law. It illegally spent appropriated money to provide proper care for immigrant detainees on dog food and night vision goggles for Border Patrol. More than 30 times, courts found that the prior administration’s policies were implemented illegally, but the assault was so relentless that many changes were not stopped.

Bottom line, President Biden and his administration inherited a nearly collapsed and cruel system. In his first three years, the president rolled back harmful policies that separated families - taking action to reunite families, prevent future family separation, and address the root causes of migration. In total, the Biden administration rescinded over 330 Trump-era policies and advanced important measures to restore America’s asylum system, invest in border infrastructure and smart technology, increase screening and apprehensions of human and drug-traffickers, ensure protections for hard-working immigrants, and expand lawful pathways to those seeking freedom, safety and opportunity. 

Quick snapshot of what the Biden administration has done to restore order in America’s immigration system, meet the demands of our economy, and center hard-working immigrant families:

  • Reunited over seven hundred families who were separated under the Trump administration.

  • Authorized Temporary Protected Status (TPS) to over 1 million immigrants in the U.S., allowing them to legally work and remain in the country.

  • Created Uniting for Ukraine, allowing more than 150,000 Ukrainian nationals to unite with their American family members.

  • Allowed deported military veterans to access a path to return to the U.S. and citizenship.

  • Working to restore the refugee resettlement process, including the creation of the Welcome Corps that allows Americans to also engage in welcoming refugee families seeking safety and the American Dream.

  • Fortifying the DACA program against legal challenges.

  • Increasing fentanyl seizures. There was a 54% increase in fentanyl seizures from 2020 to 2021 as the Biden administration seized 11,201 pounds of fentanyl in its first year as compared to the 7,267 pounds seized by the Trump administration in 2020. To date, the Biden administration has seized over 60,000 pounds of fentanyl.

  • Strengthening worker protections to empower all workers against unscrupulous employers and exploitation.

  • Reducing the naturalization backlog. In fiscal year 2023, USCIS completed 876,000 naturalizations while reducing the backlog by over 25%.

Full analysis:

1. Expanded Lawful Pathways and Offered Protection to Millions

  • Authorized Temporary Protected Status (TPS) to over 1 million immigrants in the U.S. The Biden-Harris administration has robustly used the DHS Secretary’s authority to designate countries for Temporary Protected Status (TPS), protecting millions. In 2023 alone, the Biden-Harris administration redesignated Afghanistan, Cameroon, Haiti, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Ukraine, Venezuela, and Yemen for TPS. The redesignation of Venezuela in particular protected approximately 472,000 additional people, allowing them to work and contribute to their communities as humanitarian conditions in their country deteriorated under the Maduro regime. The administration also rescinded Trump’s TPS terminations for El Salvador, Honduras, Nepal, and Nicaragua and extended TPS protections into 2025, giving renewal applicants 18 months to apply.

  • Uniting for Ukraine allows more than 150,000 Ukrainian nationals to unite with their American family members. In response to the humanitarian crisis caused by Russia’s aggression in Ukraine, the administration established a new process to match Ukrainian nationals and their family members abroad with sponsors in the U.S. As of the end of FY 2023, more than 150,000 Ukrainian nationals and their immediate family members had entered the United States under the Uniting for Ukraine process.

  • The administration created new paths to lawful entry for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans (CHNV). Nearly 238,000 individuals have entered through the CHNV Process; critically, in the months immediately after its implementation, significantly fewer individuals from these countries attempted to cross the southwest border unlawfully.  

  • Restoring family reunification programs. The administration restored family reunification parole programs for Cubans and Haitians halted by the Trump administration and developed programs to help reunite family members from Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras.

  • Immigrant children gain access to legal and safe pathways. The administration announced enhancements to the Central American Minors (CAM) parole process, expanded eligibility criteria for those who may request U.S. Refugee Assistance Program access for qualifying children, and increased capacity for H-2 visa programs.

2. Restored Trust in Our Immigration System by Unwinding the Harshest Trump-era Policies

  • Reunification of Separated Families. In the first weeks of his administration, President Biden ordered the formation of the Interagency Task Force on the Reunification of Families to address the human tragedy that occurred when the Trump administration used our immigration laws to intentionally separate children from their parents. As of November 14, 2023, the Task Force has reunified 775 children with their parents in the United States and has made behavioral health services available to those families. On December 11, 2023, the administration reached a court-approved settlement that imposes strong limits on the separation of children in the future. 

  • Restored economic opportunities for American children. The Department of Justice took immediate steps to resolve outstanding public charge litigation and wipe the radical Trump-era rule off the books, replacing it with a rule that restored the prior interpretation of “public charge” that has existed for decades. This measure marks progress toward unwinding the chilling impacts of the Trump-era policy on millions of American children in immigrant families.

  • Re-prioritized focus on serious public safety threats. On day one of his administration, President Biden issued an executive order revoking a Trump-era executive order that allowed the government to indiscriminately arrest and deport immigrants and ordered DHS to consider new enforcement priorities. On September 30, 2021, the DHS published a set of fair priorities that focused on threats to public safety, national security, and border security. The priorities were immediately caught up in litigation but after a successful defense mounted by the Department of Justice, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of DHS. On July 28, 2023, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) began implementing the priorities and in September, the immigration courts followed suit. 

  • The administration discontinued use of three of the nation’s worst detention facilities. In March 2022, ICE announced that it would be discontinuing its use of the Etowah County Detention Center, which has long been recognized as one of the worst and most abusive detention facilities in the country. ICE’s announcement was the result of extensive reporting and advocacy from immigration advocates drawing from the experiences of individuals who had been detained at Etowah – sometimes for years. At the same time, ICE also announced that it would limit its use of 3 other detention facilities with egregiously bad records, including the Glades County Detention Center, where guards reportedly targeted Black migrants for extreme physical and verbal abuse, pepper spray, solitary confinement, and more. Later in the year, ICE confirmed it would discontinue its use of the Berks County Residential Center and the Yuba County Jail.

  • Reviving immigrant integration and reducing backlogs. In the first weeks of his administration, President Biden issued an executive order directing federal agencies to take steps to restore faith in our legal immigration system, including removing barriers and promoting access legal pathways. Since then, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has taken steps to ameliorate some of the harms caused by the enormous backlogs plaguing the immigration system after Trump starved the agency of resources. USCIS has made numerous “around the edges” changes to help speed up processing and provide greater access to immigration benefits, including exempting certain people from unnecessary fees, streamlining access to green cards and a work permit for those who are eligible, and offering clarifying guidance to those seeking certain non-immigrant visas.

  • The Department of State has also dramatically improved overseas visa processing. In fiscal year 2023, the agency issued over 10 million visas worldwide. This success has been due in part to the use of  innovative and efficient policy and procedures, including increased interview waivers.

3. Protections for Workers

  • Ensuring immigrant workers can contribute without the fear of exploitation. On October 12, 2021, Secretary Mayorkas issued a memo doing away with large-scale worksite raids, refocusing DHS enforcement on unscrupulous employers who aim to exploit workers, and offering greater protections for workers.

  • Hard-working immigrants access deferred action and work permits. As part of that effort, on January 13, 2023, after years of courageous advocacy by immigrant workers, DHS established a process through which immigrant workers who are in labor disputes could avail themselves of protection from deportation. DHS, working with the Department of Labor (DOL) and other labor agencies, established a process for immigrant workers to apply for deferred action and a work permit valid for two years. This process has allowed workers, many of whom have been fearful of reporting labor law violations, to expose unscrupulous employers and create better working conditions for all workers, while giving labor agencies the power to thoroughly investigate such violations.

  • Strengthening worker protections and labor rights. In October 2023, the White House released a report of the H-2B Worker Protection Taskforce, which was created the previous year to address program integrity and worker exploitation. The task force pulled together several agencies to collaborate and advance protections for workers, including strengthened enforcement mechanisms to combat unscrupulous employers and empowering workers by improving their access to critical information about their labor rights and immigration options.

4. Renewing Our Commitment to Refugees 

  • Restoring refugee resettlement process. Weeks after taking office, President Biden issued an executive order promising to revive the refugee resettlement infrastructure that was starved by Trump. Each year since then, the administration has successively ramped up refugee processing, and in the most recent fiscal year, set the admissions ceiling to 125,000. 35,000 to 50,000 of those admissions slots have been reserved for refugees from Latin America and the Caribbean - more than double the previous year’s allotment. 

  • The creation of the Welcome Corps activates welcoming Americans. In January 2023, the administration announced the creation of the Welcome Corps, a new program that allows everyday Americans to become active participants in the refugee resettlement process by privately sponsoring refugees from around the world. The Welcome Corps is the boldest innovation in refugee resettlement in four decades. 

5. Renewed the Nation’s Commitment to Citizenship and Integration 

  • Restoring the American commitment to naturalization and citizenship. In fiscal year 2023, USCIS completed 876,000 naturalizations while working to reduce N-400 backlogs and processing times; by the end of the fiscal year, naturalization applications were being processed within six months and the backlog had decreased by over 25%.

  • Deported military veterans access path to return and citizenship. The administration has made a particular commitment to removing barriers to citizenship for immigrants who have served in our military by cutting out bureaucratic red tape. It has further recognized that sometimes people make mistakes - including those who bravely served in our armed forces - and deserve a second chance. Through its ImmVets resource, eligible deported veterans access tools to facilitate their return and apply for citizenship.

6. Maintaining a Commitment to Women and Children, Including Guaranteeing Access to Reproductive Health Care

  • Ensuring access to abortion. In the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s decision overturning Roe v. Wade, the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) issued field guidance confirming that ORR staff and care providers must not prevent unaccompanied children in their care from accessing legal abortion services and must, in fact, make all reasonable efforts to facilitate access upon request, including by transporting a minor from a state in which abortion would be illegal or unavailable to one in which it could be provided. This guidance stands in stark contrast to the direct and personal involvement that the Trump-era ORR Director had in preventing migrant children from accessing abortion services. 

  • Survivors of abuse and violence access legal pathways. USCIS has prioritized providing immigration protections to survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault, human trafficking, and child abuse and neglect by offering deferred action and work permits to those stuck in long, statutory backlogs. In addition, it has established a new service center dedicated to processing humanitarian cases, including those created by the Violence Against Women Act.

7. Steps Taken to Preserve, Fortify, and Defend DACA Policy In the Courts 

  • Fortifying the DACA program against legal challenges. On day one of his presidency, President Biden vowed to preserve and fortify DACA. In 2022, DHS finalized a regulation cementing the long-standing policy. Due to ongoing litigation, Judge Hanen in Texas prevented the administration from fully implementing the rule, allowing it to apply only to applicants for renewal. The case is currently before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit where the administration continues to defend DACA. 

  • Streamlining DACA renewals. USCIS has taken steps to ensure that applicants for renewal receive their updated DACA within 120 days, including ensuring its online DACA processing form announced in 2022 operates efficiently. 

  • Ensuring healthcare access for DACA recipients. The administration also released a long overdue proposed rule that expands health coverage for DACA recipients, giving them the ability to apply for coverage through the Health Insurance Marketplace, where they may qualify for financial assistance based on income and through their state Medicaid agency. If the rule is finalized as proposed, it could lead to 129,000 previously uninsured DACA recipients receiving health care coverage. 

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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.