Biden’s Government Orders: President to Signal three Rolling Again Trump’s Immigration Agenda

WASHINGTON – President Biden plans to sign three executive orders on Tuesday to further roll back his predecessor’s attack on immigration and reunite migrant children separated from their families on the Mexican border, government officials said.

In one order, the President will instruct the Homeland Security Secretary to lead a task force To try to reunite several hundred families who remain separated as part of former President Donald J. Trump’s zero tolerance policy, which is designed to prevent migration across the country’s southern border.

In two more orders, Mr Biden will approve a review of Mr Trump’s immigration policy that restricted asylum, stopped funding abroad, made it more difficult to obtain green cards or naturalized, and slowed legal immigration to the United States.

The three orders will help fulfill the promises Mr Biden made on the campaign to reverse Mr Trump’s immigration agenda. But they also highlight the difficulty the new president faces when it comes to unraveling dozens of individual guidelines and regulations.

Senior administration officials said Monday evening that most of Mr Biden’s policies would not make immediate changes on Tuesday. Rather, they are intended to give time to officials in the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Justice, and the Department of Foreign Affairs to assess how best to reverse the guidelines.

This is likely to disappoint the advocates of migrants who seek action that will help people immediately. For example, an order from Mr Biden will direct officials to review a Trump-era program that forced Central American migrants seeking asylum to wait in poor camps in Mexico.

However, the order will not immediately address the reality that many of these migrants, including families and children, have waited in dangerous conditions for months.

The most famous of the three orders seeks to improve family separation policies, widely condemned after Mr Trump officially introduced them in the summer of 2018. More than 5,000 families were separated.

By order of Mr. Biden, the federal government will attempt either to bring parents to the United States or to return children to parents living abroad, depending on the wishes of the families and the specifics of immigration law.

Officials said this could include providing visas or other legal entry options for parents who have been deported back to their home countries. Or it could mean that children who live in the United States will be sent back to those countries to be with their parents. They said each case is looked at separately.

Officials said Alejandro N. Mayorkas, Mr Biden’s candidate for Homeland Security Secretary, will head the task force. The Senate cleared the way for a confirmatory vote on Mr Mayorkas last week and is expected to approve him on Tuesday. The secretary of state and attorney general will also be on the task force, officials said.