Guide to Biden’s Immigration Reform Plans

President-elect Joe Biden has a lot of new plans, and as soon as he’s in office, he wants to apply them. The new policies will undo what President Trump’s administration did over the last few years. So, what is the Biden Immigration Reform and what exactly does it include? Below, you will find out what effect it’s going to have on people.

Biden’s First 100 Days Immigration Plan

There will be a lot of actions taken during the very first 100 days. In order to make multiple policy changes, the Biden Immigration plan is going to use some orders. Here is what the administration wants to do during the first 100 days:

Reverse Trump’s Public Charge Rule

During President Trump’s rule, new permanent residents had to deal with a public charge rule, as it was one of the grounds of inadmissibility. This policy is trying to stop foreign nationals from getting green cards if there are high chances they will have to rely on public benefits to live. Asylees and other certain categories are not included in this rule, though.

While the policy is pretty reasonable, President Trump’s administration made it more restrictive through USCIS. At the same time, the rule in the Department of State was very suppressive. Under the Trump administration, immigrants had to deal with a “wealth test”, which would only make legal immigration much harder.

President-elect Joe Biden plans to end this, though. He wants everything to go back to how it used to be and use the old public charge guidelines. As such, people who want to immigrate will have to submit Form I-864, Affidavit of Support, instead of Form I-944, Declaration of Self Sufficiency.

Restore DACA Protections

In 2012, the DACA program was born thanks to the Obama-Biden administration. Under this program, some undocumented immigrants who were brought to the U.S. as children by their parents were protected. The Trump administration tried to get rid of the program over the years, and they managed to change it. It was reduced to a renewable one-year protection period. However, the administration was unsuccessful at getting rid of the program, as the courts blocked a lot of the policies.

Under president-elect Joe Biden and his administration, DACA will be brought back to how it used to be. USCIS will have to accept new applications for DACA. Not to mention that Biden also plans to give DACA recipients the possibility of obtaining citizenship, and he is also looking into legal options to prevent family separation scenarios. Other than that, the administration also wants to make it possible for Dreamers to get federal student aid.

Rescind the Travel Ban

It’s not unknown that the Trump administration tried its best to make it harder for people from certain countries to travel to the U.S. There was a travel ban that applied to people from 13 countries. Joe Biden plans to rescind the ban, which mostly includes Muslim and African countries, and use the current immigration law when regulating foreign national entry.

Halt Construction of the Border Wall

When president-elect Biden will be in charge of the U.S., he might put an end to the “National Emergency” where Donald Trump wanted to use the Department of Defense federal dollars for the construction of a wall. Biden’s administration supports the security of the border, and it’s also interested in improving the port of entry infrastructure.

Repair Asylum Policies

Asylum seekers were very limited under the rule of the Trump administration. This is why the Biden administration wants to change this and make it possible for people to seek refuge if they come from an unsafe country. He plans to raise the refugee admission annual ceiling to 125,000. Of course, congress legislative help might be necessary to make this possible.

Furthermore, people expect the president-elect to also get rid of policies that separate children and parents at the border. Not to mention that they also expect him to put an end to any policy that makes people wait outside the U.S. before they become asylees. Humanitarian protections may also be given to Venezuelans who live in the U.S.

Re-establish Priority Enforcement

Another plan is to put an end to enforcement policies that involve targeting individuals who have never been convicted of any serious crime. The focus will be on Immigration Customs and Enforcement and the threats to national security and public safety. As such, the deportations will be limited to people who committed serious criminal offenses and felonies.

Provide Protections for Immigrant Veterans

Under the last administrations, there was a clash between the obligation to protect the U.S. military veterans and the immigration law. The consequence was that many immigrant veterans ended up being deported. Joe Biden wants to change that and he also wants to create parole access that brings the deported veterans back to the U.S.

Streamline Naturalization for Permanent Residents

It’s not a secret that there’s a very high backlog for naturalization. About 740,000 permanent residents are waiting to see some action, based on the recent reports from the USCIS. The filing fee was attempted to be increased by the Trump administration, whereas the citizenship test was updated. President-elect Joe Biden has plans to streamline and make improvements for the naturalization process. Therefore, qualified green card owners may have easier access to naturalization. So far, the details on this are limited.

Long-Term Immigration Reform Plans

Other than the plans for the first 100 days, there are also long-term immigration reform plans. Here’s what they involve.

Overhaul H1B Visa System

Joe Biden has plans to work with the Congress on reforming temporary visas, and thus establish a wage-based allocation process and enforcement mechanisms. This will happen in order to make sure they are not used to undermine wages, and rather align with the labor market. After adjusting them, Biden also wants to increase the number of high-skilled visas, and get rid of the limits of employment-based visas based on country.

He might also work in order to reverse the measures taken by the Trump administration that revoke work permits to H-1B visa spouses.

Expand Employment-Based Visas

There is a capped number of 140,000 employment-based visas every year. What president-elect Joe Biden wants to do is increase the number of visas for permanent, employment-based immigration during growth times. When U.S. unemployment times hit, the cap may contract.

What’s more, Biden also plans to exempt recent Ph.D. program graduates in U.S. STEM fields from the cap.

Create Paths to Citizenship for Undocumented

There are also plans to create new paths to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. There are around 11 million people in the U.S. who live without immigration status. They still contribute a lot to the U.S. economy, and many of them have U.S. permanent resident or citizen family members. Under the Biden administration, new ways to legalize the group will be found, which means they can keep contributing to society. At the moment, the path to legal status for them is very limited.

Conclusion

As expected, the Biden administration comes with a lot of changes, and immigrants are eager for them to happen. We’ll just have to wait and see if the plans will apply and will be a success.

Frank Gogol

I’m a firm believer that information is the key to financial freedom. On the Stilt Blog, I write about the complex topics — like finance, immigration, and technology — to help immigrants make the most of their lives in the U.S. Our content and brand have been featured in Forbes, TechCrunch, VentureBeat, and more.

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