Incoming Biden Administration Will Make Massive Immigration Changes in First 100 Days
FAIR Take | November 2020
A new report from CBS News confirms that President-Elect Joe Biden will pursue radical immigration policies within his first 100 days in office. Citing unnamed sources in the former Vice President’s camp, CBS reports that Biden wants to immediately take action to expand immigration to the United States and rescind many of President Trump’s most successful executive policies.
President-elect Biden and his team will scale back arrests of illegal aliens, freeze deportations for 100 days, restore and expand the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program that President Donald Trump tried rescinding, end successful asylum agreements with Mexico and the northern triangle countries, reinstate the controversial Central American Minors (CAM) program, terminate the public charge rule, and increase the refugee ceiling to 125,000 a year.
In essence, the incoming Biden administration will attempt to undo every immigration-related executive action that President Trump accomplished in four years within the first 100 days of his presidency. Congress, even when completely controlled by the Republicans between 2017-2019, failed to produce any lasting immigration legislation, forcing the president to do everything through executive orders and agency rulemaking.
The Biden administration will find it harder to quickly overturn new agency rules, such as those that recently reformed aspects of the H-1B program, because of how long the federal rule-making process takes. But Biden could easily overturn many of the outgoing president’s immigration executive orders, and promises to do so. It is widely expected that Biden will staff his administration with people that have prior political and Federal agency experience, meaning that they will be able to better navigate the twisted process that governs the implementation of executive actions.
In the coming days and weeks, Biden will begin selecting prospective cabinet members and political appointments, including for crucial immigration-related agencies such as the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Justice, and the State Department. Those appointments could shed light on how aggressive the Biden team may pursue upending the immigration policies of the Trump administration, and FAIR is monitoring the process closely.