Over the past year, has President Biden done a good job
following through on his promises to support immigrant communities?
While the president did stop funding for the construction of Trump's border
wall, end the public charge rule, reverse the so-called "Muslim ban,"
and undo some of his predecessor's unfair immigration policies, many immigration
advocates claim that Biden has failed to live up to his biggest promises.
Stay tuned because we are going to take a look
at President Biden's immigration performance over the last year,
including the build back better reconciliation bill
and all its immigration provisions.
And if this is your first time on my channel, be sure to subscribe
and turn on notifications for regular immigration news updates.
Let's start with a look at Biden's refugee program
and how many people have been admitted under it.
In 2020, then-President Trump admitted 11,814 refugees,
the lowest amount since the start of the Refugee Act in 1980.
After taking office, President Biden surprised everyone by upholding Trump's
refugee admissions cap of 15,000 and only raised it to 62,500
in May after receiving backlash from immigrant communities.
Despite this increase, the Biden administration
still only admitted 11,411 refugees
by the end of fiscal year 2021,
which was 400 fewer than the former President Trump.
The administration blamed the pandemic and Trump policies,
but immigration advocates say that Biden failed to implement virtual interviews,
hire more staff, expand the refugee referral system
or make any of the structural improvements necessary to accommodate refugees.
Jorge Loweree, policy director with the American Immigration Council,
said "It's clear at this point that much of what has happened or not happened
on immigration is driven by politics at the border.
That crisis narrative has forced the administration
to direct resources from other places to the southern border,
and this is in part a reflection of that." How about the immigration court backlog?
Has the Biden administration made any progress reducing it?
When Donald Trump took office in 2017, there were 542,411
people
with deportation cases pending for the immigration courts.
When President Biden took office, that number had jumped
nearly two and a half times to 1.29 million cases.
By the end of November 2021, the total number of cases
had continued to increase and now stands at 1.56 million cases,
with an average hearing wait time of 905 days.
In addition, current wait times for asylum cases
average 1621 days and more than 40% of asylum
cases filed since October of 2000 are still pending.
The Biden administration originally proposed
hiring more immigration judges to chip away at the backlog,
but has only hired 22 so far and is instead relying on asylum
officers and expedited removal proceedings to slow the court backlog.
As with the refugees, this issue appears to be a casualty of the southern border
crisis and the politics surrounding it, so let's take a look at that next.
How has President Biden's administration handled the increase
in migrants at the southern border over the past year?
Customs and Border Patrol encountered 1.7 million illegal border crossings
in fiscal year 2021, which is the highest number
since the government started tracking in 1960.
Rather than providing relief for asylum seekers,
President Biden has used programs like Remain in Mexico, Title 42,
and Expedited Removals to deport 1.28
million people in just one year, which is almost 500,000
more than the three years of the Trump administration.
The Biden administration's response has been to assign Vice President
Kamala Harris to investigate and address the root causes of migration,
which has not resulted in any measurable progress so far.
What about the immigration reform we have been carefully
following through Congress for the past several months?
As most of my viewers already
know, the Biden administration included the provisions in the Build Back
Better Reconciliation Bill to reform legal immigration and provide
relief to the millions of undocumented individuals living in the US.
Initially, the bill included a path to citizenship for the approximately
11 million undocumented essential workers, dreamers,
TPS holders and farm workers in the country, as well as measures
to reclaim unused green cards and remove the per country cap for visa applicants.
Unfortunately, the immigration provisions were rejected by Senate parliamentarian
Elizabeth MacDonough, who is the unelected rule-keeper for the Senate.
Rather than overrule her, Democrats and President Biden have continued
to revise their plan in an attempt to satisfy her,
watering down immigration provisions each time.
As of December 17th, the parliamentarian rejected Plan C,
and there does not seem to be another plan in the works.
What do you think?
Has President Biden done a good job serving immigrant communities?
Are you hopeful that the Biden administration will do better in 2022?
Leave me a comment and let me know.
And in case you did not hear the parliamentarian's decision on Plan
C earlier this month, I will include a link to that video here.
I will also continue
bringing you additional immigration news as it's available, so be sure to subscribe
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Click here to watch this video next and I'll see you there!