Biden signs immigration executive orders — but advocates push for more action
President Joe Biden on Tuesday signed multiple executive orders aimed at overhauling the country’s immigration system — but many advocates say more needs to be done.
Biden has signed dozens of executive actions since taking office on Jan. 20, including several focused on immigration. On his first day in office, he strengthened Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, reversed the “Muslim ban,” halted construction on the border wall and rescinded policies enacted under former President Donald Trump that the Biden administration said “directed harsh and extreme immigration enforcement.”
Biden’s administration has also rescinded the “zero tolerance” policy, a controversial Trump-era program that allowed for the separation of thousands of migrant families.
On Tuesday, he signed orders establishing a task force to reunite families still separated, an order expanding access to the country’s asylum system, and an order to “restore faith in our legal immigration system” by having his administration review whether “existing regulations, orders, guidance documents, policies, and any other similar agency actions” impede legal immigration or benefits for immigrants.
But some advocates say the actions don’t go far enough and are pushing for more immediate changes.
Reuniting families
The task force established by Biden’s executive order will “work across the U.S. government, with key stakeholders and representatives of impacted families, and with partners across the hemisphere to find parents and children separated by the Trump Administration,” the White House said Tuesday.
It will also provide regular updates to the president, including an initial update within 120 days and reports every 60 days after that.
Lee Gelernt, deputy director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Immigrants’ Rights Project, told Politico those actions aren’t immediate enough.
“All 5,500-plus separated families need immediate action — they cannot wait 120 days for a task force to make recommendations,” Gelernt said in a statement to the outlet. “These families deserve citizenship, care and resources. We hope the task force acts with urgency, and look forward to working with it to reunite families and ensure that this never happens again.”
Gelernt also called for “an immediate commitment to specific remedies” in a statement to NPR.
Lawyers working on the issue estimate 1,000 migrant children in the United States are still separated from their parents and that at least 500 were taken from their parents, who haven’t been found yet, The New York Times reports.
Biden’s executive order fulfills a campaign pledge to create a task force charged with reuniting families separated under the Trump administration. Biden previously called the policy “criminal” and a violation of the “very notion of who we are as a nation.”
Other orders
Biden’s second executive order Tuesday focuses on changing the country’s asylum system and its handling of migrants coming to the border. It calls for a review of the Migrant Protection Protocols program, also referred to as “Remain in Mexico” policy, and for other Trump-era policies to be reviewed or rescinded.
The “Remain in Mexico” policy required some people seeking asylum to wait in Mexico while their court proceedings were being held in the U.S.
The third order largely focuses on a review of policies that “have set up barriers to our legal immigration system.” It also reverses Trump’s memorandum “requiring family sponsors (of immigrants) to repay the government if relatives receive public benefits” and instructs agencies to “review the public charge rule and related policies and streamline the naturalization process.”
Noah Gottschalk — head of global policy for Oxfam America, an organization focused on “working to end the injustice of poverty” — said in a statement that the policy reviews “cannot come soon enough for the tens of thousands of people still living in limbo.”
“The ‘Zero Tolerance’ Policy, which President Biden rightfully rescinded last week, was just one of the many tools his predecessor used to separate families. Every day that policies like ‘Remain in Mexico’ and Title 42 remain in place is a day that brings further separation and pain to tens of thousands of families,” the statement said.
Bob Goodfellow, Amnesty International USA’s interim executive director, said in a statement to Politico that the administration cannot “brush aside” accountability for unity.
“While the harms wrought by family separation can never fully heal, a criminal investigation is a critical and necessary step to ensure that such grave human rights violations are never repeated,” Goodfellow said, according to Politico.
Alida Garcia, vice president of FWD.US, an immigration advocacy group, told NBC News that while Biden’s orders are “welcome and transformative news, the humanitarian crisis has not changed at the border.”
White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said Tuesday the executive actions are just part of the Biden administration’s strategy.
“Continuing to take policy steps to address the plight of migrant families, to do so in a humane and moral way is a priority of this administration,” Psaki told reporters. “We obviously are going to continue to work on the immigration bill that we’ve proposed to Congress.”
The White House has also emphasized that change will not be immediate.
“The situation at the border will not transform overnight, due in large part to the damage done over the last four years,” the White House said in a statement about the orders. “But the president is committed to an approach that keeps our country safe, strong and prosperous and that also aligns with our values.”
