Biden’s Immigration Plans Should Concern All Americans

If Joe Biden follows through on his campaign promises, he is likely to implement a number of immigration policies that America does not need and Americans do not want.

Details reported of Biden’s planned actions on immigration include:

• Amnesty – During the debates, Biden stated that within his first 100 days, he would “send to the United States Congress a pathway to citizenship for over 11 million undocumented people.” He may not be able to get that legislation through the Senate, but that’s not sure. Many corporate Republicans earlier supported the “Gang of 8” amnesty proposal. Each amnesty or amnesty proposal generates a new surge of illegal immigration, so we will need another amnesty for the next 11-plus million illegal immigrants, and another one after that.
• Travel restrictions – President Trump’s travel and immigration restrictions on 13 countries for security reasons are on the chopping block.
• Enforcement – Biden has pledged that “no one will be deported at all” during his first 100 days in office, and that subsequent deportations would only be for felons. He noted, “I don’t count drunk driving as a felony.”
• “Remain in Mexico” policy – At the U.S. border with Mexico, Biden has pledged to discontinue the Migrant Protection Protocols policy of requiring non-Mexican migrants to wait in Mexico while their U.S. removal proceedings are pending.
• Asylum agreements – The incoming Biden administration is planning to withdraw from the bilateral agreements Trump brokered with Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras that allow the U.S. to send rejected asylum-seekers to those countries and have them seek refuge there. 
• Public charges – The new administration has pledged to eliminate the “public charge” rules that deny green cards and immigrant visas to applicants who U.S. officials determine will rely on welfare services like Medicaid, food stamps, and housing vouchers. 
• Refugee numbers – Biden has promised to dramatically increase refugee admissions to 125,000 per year, more than double the average over the last 25 years, even as Europe is reeling from several terrorist beheadings. 
• Chain migration – Biden calls family-based immigration the “foundation of our immigration system,” which means that each illegal immigrant who receives amnesty can bring in additional family members. Over 60 percent of the 33 million immigrants admitted to the United States between 1981 and 2016 were chain migration immigrants.

Many of these immigration policies, which Biden has signaled he will undo, maintain broad bipartisan support. Trump’s implementation of a rule to deny green cards to immigrants who are likely to use welfare benefits was widely condemned by leftists, but 60% of voters supported it. A proposal to allow victims of crimes by illegal aliens to sue sanctuary cities for damages drew 55% support.

A Washington Post-University of Maryland poll found that 65% of Americans support a temporary halt on nearly all immigration during the coronavirus outbreak, which President Trump implemented. 

It remains unclear whether Biden will overturn the current freeze on immigration during the coronavirus pandemic. In a national ad campaign leading up to the election on November 3, 2020, Californians for Population Stabilization (CAPS) called on both candidates to Keep Immigration Paused so Americans can get back to work and the economy can recover. 

The new administration will face a plethora of serious challenges, including how to treat and contain the coronavirus pandemic and get millions of Americans back to work. Unfortunately, the Biden camp has signaled they are embracing regressive immigration policies that put Americans in the back of the line for desperately needed jobs.

In 1995, the bipartisan U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform, chaired by Barbara Jordan, called for significant immigration reductions as necessary for the “national interest.” If the Biden-Harris administration follows through on its immigration proposals, the U.S. population will soar by tens of millions over the coming decades, with all the negative implications that entails for the environment and for American workers. This is certainly not in our national interest.