Amid his first wave of actions after his inauguration Wednesday, President Joe Biden took direct aim at the nation’s dysfunctional immigration system by rescinding some of the Trump administration’s more extreme approaches to enforcement and pushing Congress to finally adopt comprehensive reforms. That’s a refreshing – and responsible – change from his predecessor’s unconscionably nativist approach.
Biden seeks to embrace a humane and pragmatic view of immigration reform. The executive directives halt further construction of President Donald Trump’s vanity wall along the U.S-Mexico border; reinvigorate the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program that Trump sought to end; end the ban on people from about a dozen predominantly Muslim countries; and withdraw an order that ramped up immigration sweeps in the interior of the country.
Biden’s more ambitious efforts lie within the bill he proposed to Congress this week, the U.S. Citizenship Act of 2021. Among other things, the measure would let some 11 million people now living in the shadows apply for temporary legal status and provide them an eight-year path to citizenship. That is both the strength of the proposal and its major friction point.
A main argument against such “amnesty” is that it encourages migrants to come in without permission in the hope of staying below the radar until the next amnesty comes along. But sweeping amnesties such as what Biden proposes are rare – the last major one came in the Reagan administration – and the reality is that our immigration enforcement has been ineffective for so long that the U.S. is now home – yes, home – to millions of people without authorization.
Rousting them all, as the hard-liners advocate, would be impossible to achieve and damaging to the country. As of 2017, half of all unauthorized immigrants had lived in the U.S. for at least 15 years, according to the Pew Research Center, and their tenure has likely only increased since then. Many have American spouses, American dependents, and contribute to their communities and the economy (including owning businesses that employ Americans). There is nothing to be gained from kicking them out now. Immigration reform must reflect that reality while also ensuring that migrants who credibly pose a risk to public safety do not remain.