SisterLove Statements: President Joe Biden’s First 100 Days & Immigration Policy

Before entering the White House, President Joe Biden made his intentions with his immigration agenda abundantly clear and declared to make it a priority during his presidency, but what has been going on so far under his administration? What did Biden’s first 100 days look like?

There are a number of promises that Biden made for the first 100 days he has been in office regarding immigration in the U.S. He said that he would be reversing Donald Trump’s policies and addressing the issues with the asylum system. According to the Migration Policy Institute, the Biden administration has taken 94 executive actions on immigration to undo Trump’s previous actions and enact new policies. At the moment, he has achieved around half of his proposed objectives.

Although Biden has made advancements in immigration policy, there are still too many problems that need to be addressed immediately. For example, according to NBC News, the Supreme Court ruling in Sanchez v. Mayorkas Secretary of Homeland Security entails that 400,000 immigrants with Temporary Protected Status (TPS) in the U.S. are ineligible to apply to become citizens. TPS is a program that offers a temporary legal status to immigrants who cannot return to their country of origin due to armed conflict, natural disaster, or other extraordinary reasons. Biden had promised to build “a path to citizenship through legislative immigration reform” for TPS holders but currently this is not the case.

The Washington Post writes that “Immigration arrests in… the United States have plunged by more than half… Jails that were holding more than 50,000 detainees a day under Trump are detaining approximately 20,000.” Nevertheless it is evident that the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) continues to criminalize innocent people as they irrationally hold immigrants in custody. There is much work that still needs to be done.

In the meantime, it would be beneficial to take actions such as eliminating the three and 10-year bars to entry. They stem from the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibilty Act and are meant to address unlawful presence in the U.S.. USA Today states that there is already bipartisan support to remove these bars; additionally, Biden has proposed eliminating them in his immigration reform bill, the U.S. Citizenship Act of 2021.

There are also calls to use community-based alternatives to detention (ATD) which have shown to be more affordable and accessible as opposed to keeping immigrants detained. According to the International Detention Coalition, ATD are “any law, policy, or practice by which persons are not detained for reasons relating to their migration status.” Using these alternatives would be incredibly beneficial, especially for trans migrants. The Guardian writes that trans individuals who have been detained are treated incredibly poorly as many have been denied essential medical care and are subject to sexual assault — around one in four substantiated cases of sexual assault in detention involved a trans victim.

An 18-page policy memo authored by six non-profit groups was presented to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) arguing that “ICE is incapable of keeping trans people safe in custody and that the only appropriate option was to adopt community-based alternatives to detention.”

In a policy brief from the Stanford Law School Immigrants’ Rights Clinic, community-based ATD programs effectively balance the governmental goal of ensuring court appearance and compliance with immigrants’ human rights. As there is already substantial evidence that community-based ATD are significantly more effective and humane, there should be steps taken to reduce the role of the detention system and expand community-based ATD which would be beneficial for both immigrants and the U.S.

While Biden has accomplished some of the goals he detailed while running for President, there is much work still left to be done. TPS recipients need a pathway to citizenship. Asylum seekers and refugees need to be heard and given an opportunity to argue why they should be allowed to stay in the United States. ICE needs to stop detaining immigrants for no reason other than the fact that they are undocumented. Trans detainees need to be protected-- they need to have their medical needs met and they deserve to be free from instances of sexual assault. We at SisterLove will continue applying pressure to legislators and the Biden administration to address these issues.

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