WASHINGTON – When President Donald Trump was seeking re-election, foreign-born American residents were rushing to obtain citizenship before it was too late.
“I didn’t know what would happen if Trump got a second term,” said Victoria Abramowska, who obtained citizenship in Maine a few months ago, “after all the crazy things he had already done.”
His fears were not unfounded. The Trump administration was more hostile to immigration and immigrants than any other mandate in decades, making it difficult for people to visit, live or work in the United States and seeking to reduce the number of people entering the country without authorization.
Joe Biden can quickly reverse many of the government’s immigration actions once he is sworn in as president on January 20. However, Trump’s immigration legacy cannot be easily erased.
People were denied the opportunity to apply for asylum and were sent back to unsafe conditions in their home countries. The minors were traumatized by being separated from their families. The border wall was erected in sensitive environmental zones.
“The harm done to people of all stripes – legal immigrants, undocumented immigrants, asylum seekers and so on – will not be reversed quickly and, in some cases, will not be reversed at all,” said Aaron Reichlin-Melnick of American Immigration. Council.
Judge Andrew Hanen listens to the plaintiff states, including Texas, and the defense party, the MALDEF organization.
“There are people who lost their lives because of Trump’s immigration policies.”
Perhaps the most contradictory legacy of Trump’s strict immigration stances was apparently unintentional: an increase in the number of foreign residents like Abramowska who rushed to obtain citizenship out of fear of the consequences.
Abramowska, 34, who was raised in Germany but a Polish national, said she was concerned that Trump could complicate the citizenship process in the future, complicating her life should she and her American husband want to move to another country or just go on vacation. “I did not know what obstacles it would put in the way,” he said.
An experienced immigration law attorney explains the scope of the program and who it benefits.
Trump set the tone on immigration matters from the early days, describing many of the Mexican migrants as “murderers” and rapists during the June 2015 press conference in which he announced his candidacy.
In the early days of his rule, he issued an order that, among other things, prohibited the visit of residents of seven predominantly Muslim nations. After a lengthy legal dispute, a version of that order was upheld by the Supreme Court in a 5-4 vote.
Trump was quick to impose an order denying green cards to immigrants who required public assistance such as food stamps or Medicaid, which critics described as proof of wealth.
The Trump administration imposed the changes.
It also sparked a legal dispute and the measure has been suspended by a federal court.
He complained about migrant caravans showing up at the southern border and deployed the military, even though there was no indication that the Border Patrol needed help.
The government tried to prevent immigrants from crossing the southwest border with measures that included building some 450 miles of wall and forcing asylum seekers to do so in Mexico or Central America.
A federal judge blocked the entry into force of a rule by President Donald Trump’s government that would have created new obstacles for asylum seekers who have been convicted of certain crimes.
Once the pandemic broke out, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) began swiftly expelling virtually everyone under an emergency clearance.
The figures have begun to rise to the levels recorded prior to the Trump administration, although possibly a fraction are due to people who have been repeatedly detained in their attempt to illegally cross the border.
By one count, Trump made more than 400 immigration policy changes, although he focused less on the issue towards the end of his term and instead focused on “law and order” during protests related to George’s death. Floyd at the hands of the police.
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Biden can reverse many of the executive actions.
He has said, for example, that he wants to restore the refugee limit that Trump reduced to the lowest number on record, and he plans to suspend construction of the border wall.
You can offer a settlement to lawsuits that challenge government policies.
We tell you the details.
“The top priority in the first two years will be none other than simply trying to get the system back to where it was in 2016,” David Bier, an immigration policy analyst at the Cato Institute, said of the Biden administration.
Less tangible consequences may take longer to deal with.
The Trump administration froze in June granting new green cards to workers in the tech industry, seasonal workers and managers of multinational corporations. Such actions damage the image of the United States abroad, Bier said.
With a casket symbolizing the thousands of deaths from coronavirus, dozens of people demonstrated in this Pharr church claiming that the money from the border wall should be used to address the crisis. Furthermore, they fear that this church, built in 1874, will be divided from the rest of the United States.
“It made us a less promising destination and has dissuaded people from coming to start projects or create jobs in the country,” Bier said. “They are going to Canada in record numbers. They are going to Australia in record numbers. They are going to other countries or are developing other plans.
To some extent, it’s a matter of certainty, Bier said. The changes the government made to immigration policies make it difficult for anyone to plan their future.
“If you can’t plan and depend on the federal system to sustain itself in some way for several years, then you don’t build your life around something so inconsistent,” he said.
A Starr County family has not given up their legal battle to keep the government from taking over their estate and building a wall on their property.
That also applies to individuals.
“People were telling me to hurry up and get nationalized, you never know what could happen,” said Ridhima Bhatia, a 22-year-old student from India who just graduated from university and who obtained citizenship this month near Washington. DC
Bhatia had various reasons for becoming a citizen. After living in the United States with a residence permit, you believe that a United States passport would make it easier for you to move and simplify your job search.
But his decision to seek citizenship was also in response to the government’s hostility toward immigrants, something that suffered even in the luxurious northern suburbs of Virginia.
“You see more people who don’t mind discriminating, who are more hostile, and I think that’s partly because of President Trump. “He set an example with his speeches, with his way of acting.”
The surge in new citizens like Bhatia is, perhaps surprisingly, one of the legacies of the Trump era.
Last year there were more than 830,000 naturalizations, the highest number since 2008. The total during the four years of Trump’s presidency is projected to exceed 3.3 million.
Last year’s high number is the result of a higher-than-usual number of applicants early in his term, when many feared the changes ahead, said Randy Capps, director of research at the Migration Policy Institute.
The government scrutinized applicants more thoroughly, making the process more lengthy and complicated, and recently increased the difficulty of the citizenship test.
But the approval rate remained around 90% because the ground rules remained unchanged, Capps said.
“To a large extent, the legal immigration system, which is written by Congress, resisted the onslaught of the Trump administration,” he stressed.
Although Trump may have been the cause of many of those naturalizations, he was not the beneficiary. Abramowska used his new status to participate for the first time in the US presidential elections. He voted for Biden.
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