now that joe biden is about to be inaugurated, what kind of immigration reform should we expect?

Throughout his entire presidency, Donald Trump has spent much of his efforts attempting to dismantle our entire immigration system. It all began with the the Muslim ban - where the Trump administration prohibited individuals from immigrating to the United States who were from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen. Then President Trump issued an executive order taking away the ability for individuals to apply for DACA (that order was in place for years prior to a recent federal court decision overturning it). President Trump has also done everything in his power to take away the ability for individuals to apply for asylum - from his third country ban to limiting the legal definition of who qualifies for asylum. Most recently, President Trump has used Covid-19 as an excuse to completely close the borders and prevent anyone from applying for asylum at the border. This is a limited list of all the immigration policy changes that President Trump has made, to discuss all of them would take hours. 

On December 22, Joe Biden stated that he would roll back President Trump's immigration policies - but that it would "take time." High on the list of priorities is President Trump's Migrant Protection Protocol (MPP)  whereby certain migrants applying for asylum in the United States must wait in Mexico for their case to be heard. This policy in fact did not protect any migrants, but instead has put their lives in danger. Be patient with this policy this as Joe Biden has already stated that it will take months to create a new system replacing this current one. 

Now that the Democrats have control of both houses of Congress and the presidency, we can also expect for new legislation to be entered giving DACA recipients a pathway to citizenship. 

Biden also plans on ending the agreements the United States has with Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, whereby the U.S. government would send asylum seekers to those countries and require them to apply for asylum there.

To summarize, we can expect Joe Biden to make significant changes to the immigration policies enacted by President Trump, but we need to expect that it will take months for these new policies to go into effect. 

The author is an immigration attorney that practices in Alexandria, Louisiana. If you or a loved one are in need of assistance anywhere in the world, give us a call today!