Will Biden Fix Trump's Immigration Policies?

Three things to look for in the next six months.

When Biden was announced as the winner of the 2020 US presidential election on November 7, a wave of relief hit many of us who have watched in horror as Donald Trump has cranked up the immigration cruelty meter almost as far as it can go. (There’s always room for immigration to get even worse.)

The relief lasted less than a day before immigrant rights advocates began raising important questions, sometimes with jeering skepticism, on social media about whether Biden would take meaningful steps to undo Trump’s immigration policies and actually improve—rather than just repair—the immigration system. In response, more moderate voices called for a temporary cease-fire in criticism so we can all breathe.

For people more interested in understanding what happens next than in engaging in the predictable cycle of online sniping, here are three things to watch for.

Will Congress function in 2021?

During the Obama years, the main barrier to Obama’s legislative agenda was Republicans’ full-court press. Even with control of the Senate, the Trump Administration accomplished very little. So there’s little to chance that Congress will suddenly start working again. However, Biden is a very traditional politician and he is predisposed to working with Congress. If there is any whiff that Congress is not *completely* jammed up, my guess is that he will prefer to seek solutions through legislation rather than executive action—which will take longer and likely get watered down, even if that is, technically, the best way to create meaningful reforms. Ironically, if Congress remains at a stale-mate, perhaps Biden will be more likely to take executive action.

Who will Biden appoint to key cabinet positions?

Cabinet positions belong to appointees who run major federal agencies. The three main agencies that influence immigration are the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Justice, and the Secretary of State. We already know that Biden is likely to appoint Alejandro Mayorkas, former DHS Deputy Secretary to run the DHS (he will be the first Latino to do so). We also know that Biden is looking at Antony Blinken for Secretary of State and no one is quite sure who he will pick for Attorney General yet (the Attorney General runs the Department of Justice). Many of the immigration policies of the Trump Administration—from family separation to shutting the border to asylum seekers—were actually implemented by these heads of agencies. In theory, these terrible policies could be rolled back very quickly. The problem is, policies, even bad ones (especially bad ones!), have a way of being very sticky and hard to remove—like gum on the underside of a school desk. Forget what Biden’s website says about immigration, you should watch these three key positions to see if these individuals actually take bold action to overturn Trump’s policies or not. And for the most part, you’re not going to get news alerts about these people, so you have to know what news to look for. (Or just subscribe to this newsletter.)

Will Americans mobilize for immigrant rights?

The truth is, politicians are timid creatures and rarely do something just because it’s the right thing to do. Politicians need pressure. Although President Obama is known for creating the DACA program, which allowed many young people to remain in the US without fear of deportation, that policy likely would not exist were it not for the sustained organizing of young Dreamers and immigrant rights activists. I certainly noticed an explosion of immigrant rights activism from non-immigrants during the Trump Administration, lots of white people (like myself) who are not directly affected by immigration policies who found Trump’s immigration policies abhorrent. The big question is: do those organizing networks and the political energy around them have the momentum to continue during the Biden Administration? The longstanding critique of moderate politicians like Biden is that they have the effect of sucking the air out of activism. We don’t know yet whether this will be true in the next four years. But in my view, if the momentum from the last four years does not carry through the next four years, I can’t imagine that the Biden Administration will do more than the most superficial policy changes.

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