Newsman: President Joe Biden signed three executive orders including one to reunite families separated at the border under the Trump administration, as well as begin a review of a Trump-era program that has forced tens of thousands of people to remain in Mexico while their asylum cases are processed.the executive orders allow to launch a long-awaited task force for mostly policy reviews, planning and recommendations on next steps — not new policies to implement in the immediate term.. The executive action does not address whether parents who have been deported will be given special protections to come back to the United States to reunite with their children. And it would not also look at families already reunited, which differs from what immigrant advocates and human rights groups have been calling for.
“I’m not making new law. I’m eliminating bad policy,” Biden said after signing the orders in the Oval Office.
Biden signed the executive order that starts a family reunification process, one of his signature campaign promises.
The task force executive order does not include any mention of how to handle potential investigations and criminal cases against officials who were involved with implementing the zero tolerance policy. However, some attorneys have said they want and expect to see Biden encourage the Justice Department to investigate and assess whether to take legal action.
Biden signed another executive order focused on revamping the U.S. asylum system and how it handles migrants arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border. It directs Mayorkas to review the Migrant Protection Protocols program, which has forced asylum seekers to remain in Mexico while they wait for their U.S. court proceedings. There’s a backlog of thousands of cases. Last week, the DHS under Biden announced it would not enroll anyone else in the program.
The second order also asks for a review of better ways to identify and process people from the Northern Triangle countries who are eligible for refugee resettlement to the U.S. The DHS secretary will also evaluate whether to reverse a 2017 decision from Trump to rescind the Central American Minors Program, which allowed certain children to settle with family members in the U.S.
The third executive action will direct the State Department, the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security to review guidelines and policies implemented under Trump to determine whether they are in line with the government’s desire to promote “integration and inclusion.”
It will also start a review of the policy known as “public charge,” which punishes legal immigrants who use public benefits by hurting their chances to receive green cards. Although immigration advocates had called for an immediate undoing of the actions, the Biden administration is reviewing the policies in the near term. It will also call for a review of the naturalization process.
“We want to put in place an immigration process here that can, that is humane, that is moral, that considers applications for refugees, applications for people to come into this country at the border in a way that treats people as human beings,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Tuesday. “That’s going to take some time. It’s not going to happen overnight.”
A federal lawsuit in the Southern District of California has identified over 600 children separated from their parents, the majority of whom were separated before April 6, 2018, when Jeff Sessions, then the attorney general, announced the beginning of the program.
The task force will make recommendations to Biden and federal agencies on steps they can take to reunify families. Some of those options include: granting them “parole,” which, if granted, allows noncitizens to either enter or remain in the U.S. for specific reasons or issuing visas. It can also recommend offering trauma and mental health resources. And it will provide reports and recommendations on steps to prevent family separation policy from happening again. The first report is due in 120 days.
President Trump then took more than 400 immigration-related executive actions while in office. Meanwhile, Biden on his first day in office released a comprehensive immigration reform plan and signed several immigration-related executive orders to stop further construction of the border wall, emphasize commitment to preserving the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program and end Trump’s so-called Muslim ban.
