US Immigration News

In his effort to reverse a series of controversial immigration policies implemented by Donald Trump, new US President Joe Biden has now set his sights on rescinding the former President’s US work visa ban. Trump imposed the ban amid the coronavirus pandemic saying that it was ‘necessary to protect American workers.’

 

Former acting secretary of the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Chad Wolf, claims that Joe Biden’s actions on US immigration are ‘against the law’. During an interview with Fox News, Wolf, whose own appointment as acting secretary of the DHS was ruled unlawful, described Biden’s deportation moratorium in particular ‘very concerning’.

 

Joe Biden’s immediate efforts to reverse Donald Trump’s hardline US immigration policies have been hit and miss in the first week of his presidency. While his executive order to revoke Trump’s zero tolerance policy, responsible for the separation of thousands of families at the US-Mexico border, Biden’s 100-day deportation pause has been blocked by a federal court.

 

A new report published by Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) has accused US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) of ‘routinely ignoring its own COVID-19 safety rules’, resulting in significantly high infection rates across US immigration detention centers. The report states that social distancing measures are ‘impossible’ in many detention centers.

 

The Census Bureau has announced that an executive order issued by Joe Biden means that data in the 2020 US Census will exclude information on citizenship and immigration. The agency has paused work on a project initiated by former US President, Donald Trump, to gather data on US immigration status.

 

A lawyer for the US Department of Justice (DoJ) recently announced that Trump’s renewed US work visa ban would ‘remain for now’. The lawyer told a federal judge in San Francisco: “The DoJ will continue to defend former President Trump’s ban on many visa holders entering the US amid COVID-19 until it is withdrawn by President Joe Biden.”