President Joe Biden commanded resume the issuance of permanent residence cards, dubbed “ green cards, ” which was shelved by its predecessor, Donald Trump, during the coronavirus pandemic and which, according to lawyers, blocked most of legal migration to the United States.
Biden’s new measure is added to a list of ongoing repeals that it has begun to develop or are currently being implemented, especially with regard to the immigration issue in the United States.
The president stated yesterday afternoon that closing the door on legal migrants “ does not advance the interests of the United States, ” a stark contrast to the Trump administration, which defended the restriction and stated that it was necessary to keep the Americans’ jobs under construction the pandemic.
Last spring, Trump suspended the issuance of permanent residence cards for migrants until the end of 2020, citing the need to protect the labor market severely affected by the coronavirus, which is a pretext for realizing many of the cuts to legal migration that it could not have made before covid-19.
On December 31, Trump extended those orders until the end of March. The then Republican president had indicated that migrants were “a risk to the US labor market” and prevented their entry into his country by issuing Proclaims 10014 and 10052.
“On the contrary, it hurts the United States, which means, among other things, that some family members of US citizens and legal permanent residents cannot be reunited with their families here. It also affects American industries that they use the talents of people from all over the worldSaid the president.
What were the consequences of the Trump-imposed measure?
Most migrant visas had been suspended because of the warrants, said lawyers involved in the area.
Up to 120,000 family-based preferential visas were largely lost as a result of the suspension carried out for the 2020 fiscal year pandemic, according to the American Immigration Lawyers Association.
The migrants could not bring their relatives with them Unless they were US citizens applying for visas for their spouses and children under the age of 21.
The problem got so far migrants with a work visa were not allowed to enterunless they were considered to be of benefit to national interests, such as health professionals.
In addition, it closed the door on thousands of visa lottery winners, who were randomly selected from a pool of approximately 14 million applicants to receive green cards that would allow them to live permanently in the United States.
The blocked paperwork is adding to a growing backlog of 437,000 family visa applications alone, said California immigration attorney Curtis Morrison, who represented thousands of people affected by the suspension.
“I am very happy for my customers who are now able to enter the United States. But that delay (in applications) will last for years if the government does not take ambitious measures, ”he said.
In 2020, a federal judge issued a ruling that virtually overturned Proclamation 10052, after temporary foreign workers entered the United States if their employers were members of the country’s Chamber of Commerce or other major organizations that they controlled much of that. country. economy.
Proclamation 10014, however, continued to block access to thousands of migrants.
What will happen to the visa lottery?
Immigration attorneys said they were surprised that Biden is not lifting the suspension immediately, as he did with Trump’s travel ban on people from Muslim countries.
As a result, some foreigners affected by the travel ban found that they still could not reach the United States because of the suspension.
A few days ago, thousands of visa lottery winners, at risk of their permits expiring, were issued a court order that the judge in the case halted their trial. Now they are allowed to use their visa to enter the country.
The United States offers up to 55,000 visas per year for migrants whose nationality is under-represented in the country’s population. These documents must be used within the first six months after obtaining.
Meanwhile, Biden has introduced a bill that would limit presidential authority enact future bans against immigrants.
The president has not said whether there will be any compensation for visa lottery winners who have lost their chance because of the policies implemented by the pandemic. However, he asked the United States to increase the number of diversity visas available in the lottery each year from 55,000 to 80,000.
OMZI