Promises Broken and Kept: Biden’s Immigration Policy in Practice
Leading up to his inauguration last month, now-President Biden promised an overhaul of American immigration policy, condemning Trump era policies and practices. An estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants currently reside in the United States, and 74% of Americans support allowing them to remain in the country, according to a Quinnipiac University poll published early this month.
On his first day in office, Biden took eight administrative actions to change migration policy. One of these actions included a 100 day moratorium on deportations with limited exceptions. However, by February 1, less than two weeks into Biden’s term, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) had deported at least 284 people to Guatemala, Honduras, and Jamaica. This discrepancy reflects US District Judge Drew Tipton’s temporary stay on the moratorium, achieved through a court case brought by the state of Texas.
The Biden administration issued other guidelines for ICE’s activities that will be in effect for 90 days while the department works to develop long-term guidelines. The guidelines do allow deportation of individuals due to espionage or terrorism concerns that constitute a national security threat. Also, those who illegally crossed a US border after November 1, 2020 are eligible for deportation. NPR’s Joel Rose interprets the new guidelines to mean that, “in practice,… ICE arrests would be limited largely to immigrants who have been convicted of felony offenses and are already detained in federal or state prisons.” Naureen Shah, senior advocacy and policy counsel for ACLU, stated that these “interim enforcement priorities… import the injustices of the criminal legal system and will lead to continued disproportionate deportations of Black and Brown immigrants. The priorities use sweeping and overbroad presumptions of threat that have for decades resulted in biased profiling.”
Biden has not yet issued an executive order or withdrawn approval to halt the use of an order known as “Title 42” that was invoked under the Trump administration. Section 265 of Title 42 of the Public Health Code allows for the “Suspension of entries and imports from designated places to prevent spread of communicable diseases.” This policy may be invoked by the “Surgeon General, [who,] in accordance with regulations approved by the President, shall have the power to prohibit, in whole or in part” the entrance of individuals from designated countries. In its current application, Title 42 order allows officials to cite concerns of coronavirus spread to deport almost any person crossing the border into the United States illegally. As a result of this policy, “approximately 900 Haitians, including dozens of children” had been expelled from the US as of February 12.
Elsewhere, Biden has kept his promises to undo Trump Era Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), commonly referred to as “Remain in Mexico.” The MPP, put in place in January 2019, has forced approximately 70,000 migrants to remain south of the border while waiting for their court dates in the US. On February 15, border officials released 20 migrants into Yuma County, Arizona. In San Diego, California, 25 migrants were released on Friday, February 19. These 25 people are the first of a group of an estimated 25,000 asylum seekers awaiting decisions on active cases who had been forced to stay on the southern side of the border due to the “Remain in Mexico” program. At the San Diego border crossing, officials can process up to 300 migrants a day, but for now the daily target will hold at 25.
The Biden administration has reopened a Trump era detention facility in Carrizo, Texas that aims to dampen the potential for coronavirus spread and to manage the influx of unaccompanied children accepted at the border, triggered by the reversal of a Trump era practice. The facility faced much controversy when it opened, and some experts question why Biden would reopen the contentious center. This time, the center’s purpose is to hold unaccompanied migrant children, the first of its kind.
The United States has urged potential immigrants not to come to the border. In a press briefing on February 10, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki stated “now is not the time to come, and the vast majority of people will be turned away.” Authorities in Yuma County have experienced a strain on local systems, compounded by precautions intended to limit the spread of COVID-19. The International Organization for Migration (IOM) has been administering COVID-19 tests in Mexico to asylum seekers and quarantining those who test positive. The US is handling backlogged immigration cases at the border, prioritizing the oldest cases first. The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees recently published a website with resources for immigrants with active cases.
So far, Biden has made moves to keep the promises of immigration that he campaigned on. The administration promised to make significant changes to immigration in favor of migrants, but has made several decisions that have drawn criticism from civil rights advocates. It has remained stagnant on the use of Title 42, which border officials have been exploiting. The release of updated ICE guidelines reflected a suprising, stark reversal from the promise of a 100 day moratorium on deportations. Meanwhile, border officials are slowly processing the 70,000 active immigration cases that were opened during the MPP while urging potential migrants not to travel to the US-Mexico border. Finally, Biden and House Democrats introduced a bill that offers a path to citizenship for the 11 million undocumented immigrants currently residing in the United States.
In the past several days, a claim that the Biden administration deported 26,248 immigrants has circulated online, primarily through Instagram and Twitter. The Migration Tales Research Team has so far been unable to independently verify this figure.
Migration Tales recognizes that US immigration policy is a rapidly changing issue and that all information in this article is accurate at the time of publication, but may reflect inaccuracies as policies and court decisions are processed and published.
Sources:
Foster-Frau, S. (2021, February 22). First migrant facility for children opens under Biden. Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/immigrant-children-camp-texas-biden/2021/02/22/05dfd58c-7533-11eb-8115-9ad5e9c02117_story.html
Gonzalez, J. L., & Diaz, L. (2021, February 4). U.S. expels dozens of Haitian asylum seekers to Mexico. Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-immigration-border-idUSKBN2A40FM
Hesson, T., & Holland, S. (2021, February 2). Biden Moves to Reverse Trump Immigration Policies, Too Slowly for Some. US News & World Report. https://www.usnews.com/news/us/articles/2021-02-02/biden-to-issue-executive-orders-on-asylum-legal-immigration-separated-families
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Quinnipiac University. (2021, February 3). QU Poll Release Detail. QU Poll. https://poll.qu.edu/national/release-detail?ReleaseID=3688
Rose, J. (2021, February 18). Biden Tries To Rein In ICE: New Rules Limit Who Immigration Agents Target for Arrest. NPR.Org. https://www.npr.org/2021/02/18/969083367/biden-tells-ice-to-chill-new-rules-limit-who-immigration-agents-target-for-arres
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Sacchetti, M., & Hernández, A. R. (2021, February 12). Black lawmakers urge Biden to stop the deportation of Black immigrants. Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/black-immigrants-deportations-biden/2021/02/12/5f395932-6d54-11eb-ba56-d7e2c8defa31_story.html
Spagat, E., & Watson, J. (2021, February 19). US unwinds Trump policy making asylum-seekers wait in Mexico. AP NEWS. https://apnews.com/article/joe-biden-mexico-coronavirus-pandemic-el-paso-immigration-ca4f1ed0bc6ce8ff72484d8c70b08a02
The “Migrant Protection Protocols.” (2021, January 22). American Immigration Council. https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/research/migrant-protection-protocols
United States Code, CHAPTER 6A—PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICE SUBCHAPTER I—ADMINISTRATION AND MISCELLANEOUS PROVISIONS, Section 265. (2010). U.S. Government Publishing Office. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCODE-2010-title42/pdf/USCODE-2010-title42-chap6A-subchapII-partG.pdf
