WASHINGTON – President Biden reopened the country to people looking for green cards on Wednesday, ending a ban on legal immigration imposed by President Donald J. Trump last spring. He cited the need to protect American jobs during the pandemic.
In a proclamation, Mr. Biden said the ban “did not advance the interests of the United States” and challenged Mr. Trump’s claims that the way to protect the American economy during the health crisis is to keep the country away from the rest of the United States seal off the world.
“On the contrary,” Biden said of his predecessor’s immigration ban, “it is damaging the United States by preventing certain family members of US citizens and legal permanent residents from joining their families here.” It also harms industries in the US that employ talent from around the world. “
The President’s action was the latest example of his efforts to roll back Mr Trump’s attack on the nation’s immigration system. Since taking office, Mr Biden has issued several implementing regulations and directives aimed at lifting the restrictions on immigrants introduced over the past four years.
In April, as the coronavirus crisis deepened, Mr. Trump ordered a “break” from issuing green cards, one of the key ways foreigners can get permission to live and work in the US.
At the time, Mr. Trump described his action as a way to protect Americans, millions of whom lost their jobs when the coronavirus threat brought the economy to a standstill.
“By cutting off immigration, we will help put unemployed Americans first in America’s reopening. So important, “said Trump. “It would be wrong and unjust for Americans laid off by the virus to be replaced by new migrant workers from abroad. We have to take care of the American worker first. “
Mr. Trump’s critics accused him of using the pandemic as an excuse to push his agenda of severely restricting immigration. And many scholars found that studies repeatedly cast doubt on the idea that immigration is a direct threat to American jobs, as many immigrants take jobs that Americans don’t want.
Mr. Biden repeated that feeling. In his proclamation, he wrote that he “stated that” the unrestricted entry of people seeking green cards into the United States “” does not affect the interests of the United States. “
Foreigners attempting to move to the US can attempt to become “legal permanent residents” – also known as green cards – which will allow them to live in the country and eventually apply for citizenship.
Mr Trump’s proclamation did not prevent American citizens from bringing their spouses or children to the United States. But it has excluded other foreigners, including relatives of green card holders and those seeking green cards based on a job offer.
An analysis by the then Institute for Migration Policy estimated that the policy could affect up to 660,000 people.
Mr Biden has vowed to bring United States immigration policy back to what it was before Mr Trump became president. He has increased the number of refugees who can be relocated to the country and he has taken steps to process applications from asylum seekers waiting in poor camps on the Mexican border.
But Mr Biden has also proposed a wider revision of the country’s immigration laws to fulfill an election promise he made to send laws to Congress on the first day of his presidency.
In his legislation, the president would offer most of the 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the United States an eight-year path to citizenship. The legislation was proposed in the House and Senate by Mr Biden’s Democratic allies, but it is unclear whether it can deserve enough Republican support to pass the Senate.
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