Imran Yaqub Dhillon
New York
US President Joe Biden signed half a dozen executive orders on Wednesday to reverse several hardline immigration policies put in place by former President Donald Trump. Migration experts warn that it will take months or longer to unravel many of the restrictions imposed in the past four years.
Biden returned to the White House late on Wednesday afternoon from the swearing-in ceremony, laying a wreath on the grave of the unknown soldier in Arlington and inspecting a parade.
And right away he started signing the orders that sweep aside Trump’s pandemic response, and reverse his environmental agenda and anti-immigration policies. He also took steps to boost the American economy and promote ethnic and religious diversity across the nation.
In one afternoon, Biden signed 17 executive orders, memorandums and proclamations from the Oval Office, including orders to rejoin the Paris Climate Accord and end the Muslim ban.
In a tweet from the official Twitter account for the US president, Biden simply said: “We’re back in the Paris Climate Agreement.”
Meanwhile, Biden’s point-man for fighting the pandemic, Jeff Zients, said the US would also rejoin the World Health Organisation, reversing his predecessor’s decision. He added that top US expert Anthony Fauci would lead a delegation to the WHO executive board meeting on Thursday.— Agencies
In a sharp departure from his Republican predecessor, Biden, a Democrat, just hours after being sworn in also sent an immigration bill to Congress that proposes opening a path to citizenship for millions of immigrants living in the United States unlawfully.
The executive actions, signed at a ceremony at the White House, included immediately lifting a travel ban on 13 mostly Muslim-majority and African countries, halting construction of the US-Mexico border wall and reversing a Trump order preventing migrants who are in the United States illegally from being counted for congressional districts.
Biden also signed a memorandum directing the Department of Homeland Security and the US attorney general to preserve the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which protects migrants who came to the country as children from deportation, and reversed Trump’s executive order calling for stricter immigration enforcement away from the country’s international borders. Biden’s DHS also issued a memorandum calling for a 100-day moratorium on some deportations.
The DHS also said it would end all enrollments in a controversial Trump program – known as the Migrant Protection Protocols – that forced more than 65,000 asylum seekers back to Mexico to wait for US court hearings. The release did not clarify what will happen to migrants currently in the program, many of whom have been stuck for months in squalid tent camps near the southwest border.
The actions show that Biden is beginning his presidency with a sharp focus on immigration, just as Trump kept the issue at the center of his policy agenda until the last days of his administration – though they come at the issue from radically different perspectives.
Biden’s decision to immediately roll back Trump’s travel ban won praise from business groups and migrant advocates. Myron Brilliant, the head of international affairs at the US Chamber of Commerce, said the ban was “was not aligned with American values” and its reversal would help “restore our credibility on the global stage.”
