What Will President Biden Change in the US Immigration Policy?
It was extremely clear that the path, which Trump administration followed, in immigration policy was including wide restrictions. A plan has been prepared by Biden’s team to remove these restrictions and their effects permanently. Within the prepared plan, the US immigration policy will be reshaped and provide return to the old status. Within the scope of 2021 US immigration policy, it is aimed to increase immigration acceptance and to relax the strict rules of the Trump era.
President Biden aims to revoke restrictions on immigration admission due to the Covid-19 outbreak. When past data is considered, it will be seen that more than 250,000 migrants were admitted in each quarter of a year. However, this number decreased to around 78,000 in the third quarter of 2020.
Reinstating this decline and not losing the cultural richness provided by migrants are main goals of Biden’s team. In order to provide this, a series of suggestions were made by President Biden himself to make some changes in the immigration policy.
2021 USA Immigration Policy and Biden’s Alteration Suggestions
The suggestions made by President Biden related to the US immigration policy in 2021 include the admission of more migrants to the country. Besides this, it is among the targeted goals that migrants, who are illegally in the USA, gain legal status. Considering that the number of unauthorized migrants in the USA is more than 10 million, it will be more clearly understood how important the mentioned suggestion is.
Alteration suggestions made by Biden include topics such as;
- Changing the existing family-based immigration system,
- Renewal of employment-based visa requirements,
- Increasing the number of diversity visas and
- Opening the citizenship path for unauthorized migrants.
With USA immigration policy, it is known that there are more than 35 million migrants in the country. A significant amount of them is citizens of the USA. A significant amount of them has permanent residence and work permits. The other part comes from students and workers who have temporary visas.
The alterations suggested by US President Biden can be evaluated under the titles as follows.
Diversity Visas
The Diversity Visa program is also known as the visa lottery. Every year 50,000 immigrants are accepted to the country by lottery with this application. It is known that more than 1 million migrants have come to the USA since this program was launched in 1995 for the first time.
Diversity visa contains diversification of the migrant population. Therefore, it does not include countries where migrants were intensely admitted in the past. Citizens of countries such as China, Canada, India and Mexico cannot apply for the diversity visa program.
It is aimed to increase the diversity visa quota to 80,000 with the alteration suggestions made by President Biden in the 2021 US immigration policy. Trump had tried to completely remove the mentioned program.
Family-Based Migration
Under favor of the policies implemented in 2019, the number of migrants who came to the USA with family-based immigration was around 710,000 people. This program lets people who have a spouse, sibling, child or parent who is a citizen of the USA come to the USA permanently. Also, in some cases, it allows parents, children or siblings of Green Card holders to receive a Green Card.
Green Card is a program which was created to increase cultural richness in the USA. This program has a maximum quota of 7% for each country. With this quota, migrants from different countries are allowed to come to the USA. The country quota, which has an important role in the USA immigration policy, has a great importance in terms of cultural richness.
President Biden suggests to increase the quota set for countries and to clear up implementation savings. Thus, family-based immigration opportunities will be further increased.
Family-based immigration, which is also referred to as “chain immigration” today, has become one of the most common methods of obtaining a Green Card. It is known that approximately two-thirds of those, who have received this card in recent years, have received it with family-based immigration.
H-1B Visas
H-1B visa is a program for workers who come to the USA temporarily. In 2019, the number of temporary workers who came to the country with this visa was more than 188,000. Again, approximately 22% of all visa issued for employment in 2019 were H-1B visas. It is also known that it constitutes 24% part of temporary visa. It is known that approximately 2 million people came to the USA with this visa between 2007 and 2019.
The Trump administration suspended H-1B visas. Due to its rigid policies towards immigrants, there was a significant increase in the rate of rejection of these visa applications. Biden administration will review these mentioned policies and ensure that rejection rate is reduced. Besides this, Biden’s government has postponed the implementation of the rule to increase visa fees, which was also undertaken by Trump. Thus, the disadvantage regarding fees was eliminated for a while.
Another catchy point in alteration suggestions by Biden in the USA immigration policy is that spouses of H-1B visa holders are granted permanent work permit. It is predicted that this area, which the Trump administration is trying to significantly restrict, will expand with the suggestions made by Biden. Thus, the number of migrants who are coming to the country with H-1B visas will increase.
Employment-Based Green Cards
When the data for 2019 is analyzed, it is seen that the USA government has given 139,000 Green Cards in total to foreign workers and their families. With the suggestion made by Biden, this figure may be further increased.
According to the 2021 US immigration policy proposal, visa right for children and spouses of foreign workers is also included, without the yearly quota is considered. Thus, there will be a significant increase in employment-based Green Card acceptance. In addition, increase in country quotas and clearing off accumulated workload will be achieved with this proposal.
Refugee Admissions
Increasing the number of accepted refugees is among the 2021 USA immigration policies. According to the mentioned suggestions, 62,500 immigrants are aimed to be admitted to the country in 2021 and 125,000 in 2022.
The number of migrants admitted to the country in 2016 when Obama was in the administration was around 85,000. By 2017, this number decreased to 54,000. In 2020, serious restrictions were imposed on the admission of migrants due to the pandemic and only around 12,000 migrants were admitted into the country.
The US immigration policy, which is undertaken by the Trump administration, includes the lowest immigration admissions since 1980. In 2020, the migrant admission limit was set at 18,000. It is much more clearly understood that how low this number is when it is compared to previous periods.
Temporary Protection Status
Biden ensured that migrants from Burma (Myanmar) and Venezuela are evaluated within the scope of TPS. TPS is a program that allows migrants under temporary protection status or from certain countries to live and work in the USA.
It is estimated that the number of migrants in the USA due to this program is 600,000 and around 300,000 of them come from Venezuela. Those who experience impossibility or danger to live in their country due to events such as hurricane, war, and earthquake are admitted to the USA within the scope of this program.
TPS is a temporary program and expires unless renewed by the Ministry of Interior. This program was extended by Trump administration for Syrians, Venezuelans and Burmese until September 2022.
In the alterations requested by Biden in the TPS program, there is a permanent residence permit for immigrants who meet certain conditions.
In the current application, giving permanent residence to persons is out of the question. Trump administration wanted to end the TPS program for almost all foreigners, except for a few countries but failed due to some cases. Biden makes suggestions to further expand the TPS program.
Temporary Permissions
Temporary legal permits were given to some of unauthorized migrants who came to the USA under extraordinary conditions. However, although these immigrants are allowed to live in the USA, they are not granted permanent residence permits. As an example of this situation, the above-mentioned “Temporary Protection Status” program can be given as an example. In addition, the “Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals” is also among the programs within this scope.
RESULT
The USA immigration policy is one of the main reasons for wealth of this country in many areas, especially cultural. Although Trump administration tried to impose some restrictions on migrants, it is perfectly clear that the Biden administration has the opposite opinion. With the 2021 USA immigration policy, we can easily say that more migrants will be admitted to the country.
