WASHINGTON — Less than two weeks into his tenure, President Joe Biden is facing increasing pressure from immigration advocates to reverse policies put in place by his predecessor, which White House officials say will take time to undo.
Immigration advocates see the steps announced by Biden on Tuesday as part of a positive initial step but warn that the new administration must take further action soon after what they saw as the steep setbacks of Donald Trump’s four years in office.
It’s a demand that White House officials acknowledge, even as they argue that the complicated process of undoing the previous administration’s actions will take time.
“The real big decision point coming up is how do you keep pushing for the north star, which is legalizing 11 million undocumented immigrants and getting them a road map to citizenship,” said Douglas Rivlin, communications director for America’s Voice, a pro-immigration advocacy group. “And then creating an immigration system that is sustainable moving forward.”
The White House on Tuesday released a series of executive orders related to immigration, coming just 13 days after Biden restored the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) plan and issued orders to halt construction of the wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.
Those orders were primarily about reviewing immigration policies implemented by the Trump administration, including the creation of a task force designed to reunite separated immigrant families and a “top-to-bottom” review across the administration of regulations that could restrict legal immigration.
“I’m not making new law,” Biden said before signing the executive orders in the Oval Office. “I’m eliminating bad policy.”
Earlier in the day, White House press secretary Jen Psaki cautioned that reversing many of Trump policies was “not going to happen overnight.” She told reporters that some of the changes will occur under the purview of Alejandro Mayorkas, who was confirmed by the Senate on Tuesday as secretary of the Department of Homeland Security.
“We want to act swiftly. We want to act promptly,” Psaki said. “But we also need to make sure we’re doing that through a strategic policy process.”
The administration will continue to roll out additional immigration policies “in the days and weeks ahead,” she said, but declined to provide details.
The White House plea for patience is reasonable, some advocates say, acknowledging that reversing many of the Trump-era policies — including ones related to applications for asylum in the United States — is not a simple process.
“It’s going to take a while to reset the system,” said Kerri Talbot, director of federal advocacy for the Immigration Hub. “They really tore it apart. Putting it back together will take some time.”
Still, Talbot said the Biden administration has “a lot of work to do” to build on the actions it has taken since entering office. The advocate mentioned the importance of trying to pass the DREAM Act in Congress by March, which would reinstitute DACA while also using the reconciliation process to pass legislation that offers legal protections for undocumented immigrants deemed essential workers.
On his first day in office, Biden proposed an immigration bill that would establish a pathway to citizenship for 11 million undocumented immigrants, attempting to restart negotiations on legislation Congress last took up in 2013.
The effort, along with the president’s executive actions, was part of a concerted effort from the new administration to demonstrate it considered the issue a priority and planned a stark departure from the policies of the Trump administration, which sought to restrict immigration while increasing deportations of men and women living in the country illegally.
The issue was also a politically sensitive one for Biden, who as vice president served in an administration that immigration advocates said deported far too many people. But even critics say the new president has attempted to chart a much different course for his White House.
“I think Biden was not going to be the deja-vu president when it came to immigration,” said Luis Gutiérrez, a former Democratic congressman from Illinois and leading immigration reform advocate.
Biden’s immigration agenda had a setback last month when a federal judge temporarily blocked the president’s plan to halt many deportations for 100 days through an executive order he had issued hours after his inauguration.
Advocates said they were undaunted by the decision, however, and urged the Biden administration to take executive action to shield undocumented immigrants from deportation.
Even, they say, if it takes time.
“People really are relieved that Trump is out of the White House and the first week of the Biden administration has gone off pretty flawlessly,” Rivlin said.
“I’m willing to cautiously give them the benefit of the doubt, at least in the second week in office,” he said.
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