WASHINGTON--U.S. President Joe Biden on Tuesday ordered a review of asylum processing at the U.S.-Mexico border and the immigration system as he seeks to undo some of former President Donald Trump's hardline policies.
Biden also created a task force to reunite migrant families who were separated at the border by Trump's 2018 'zero tolerance' strategy. "We are going to work to undo the moral and national shame of the previous administration that literally, not figuratively, ripped children from the arms of their families," Biden said as he signed the orders at the White House.
Immigration advocates have urged the new Democratic administration to move quickly but Biden aides say they need time to unravel the many layers of immigration restrictions introduced during the Trump era and to put in place more migrant-friendly systems. "It's not going to happen overnight," White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said earlier in the day.
The cautious strategy reflects the tightrope Biden is walking to reverse hard-line Trump policies while simultaneously trying to prevent a surge in illegal immigration. Biden opponents could also derail or slow down his agenda with lawsuits if his administration moves too quickly and fails to follow proper procedures.
In a sign of the wary approach, Biden's executive orders on Tuesday did not address repealing an order known as 'Title 42,' which was issued under the Trump administration to stop the spread of the coronavirus and allows U.S. authorities to expel almost all people caught crossing the border illegally.
He did, however, mandate a review of the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), a Trump programme that ordered 65,000 asylum seekers to wait in Mexico for their U.S. court hearings. The Biden administration has already stopped adding people to the programme but has not yet outlined how it will process the claims of those already enrolled.
"I can't tell you exactly how long it will take to put in an alternative to that policy," a senior administration official told reporters on Monday in response to a question about processing MPP enrollees.
Chad Wolf, former acting U.S. Department of Homeland Security secretary under Trump, said in an interview that halting the MPP programme was a mistake because it had been an effective deterrent to illegal immigration. "If you do have a surge (of migrants), you're taking one of your tools off the table," he said in reference to the programme.
Michelle Brane, a senior director with the New York City-based Women's Refugee Commission, said Biden's latest orders do not appear likely to bring the sort of quick change sought by immigrant advocates. "I think we were all hoping for something more immediate and operational, but these seem like they will be more visionary," she said.
Brane said advocates will now need to "wait and see" what concrete steps U.S. immigration agencies take to implement Biden's directives.
