US President Joe Biden has revoked a proclamation issued under the Trump administration that blocked many green card applicants from entering the United States.
The order by former President Donald Trump, known as Presidential Proclamation 100014, cited a need to protect US jobs amid high unemployment rates caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
In a statement, the White House announced that President Biden overturned the measure through an executive order, saying Trump’s ban separated families and “does not advance the interests of the United States.
“To the contrary, it harms the United States, including by preventing certain family members of United States citizens and lawful permanent residents from joining their families here.”
According to immigration lawyers, most immigrant visas were blocked by the orders. The American Immigrant Lawyers Association further revealed that as many as 120,000 family-based preference visas were lost largely because of the pandemic-related freeze in the 2020 budget year.
Also, Immigrants could not bring over family members unless they were US citizens applying for visas for their spouses or children under the age of 21. It also barred entry to immigrants with employment-based visas unless they were considered valuable to the national interest such as health care professionals.
Presidential Proclamation 100014 also shut the door on thousands of visa lottery winners who were randomly chosen from a pool of about 14 million applicants to be given green cards that would let them live permanently in the United States
Reacting to President Biden’s executive order, California immigration lawyer, Curtis Morrison, who represented thousands of people blocked by the freeze said the blocked visas add to a growing backlog that has reached 437,000 for family-based visas alone.
“I’m thrilled for my clients who are now in a position that they can now enter the US. But that backlog will take years if the administration does not take ambitious measures.”
Lawyer Curtis Morrison
Immigration lawyers had earlier said they were surprised President Biden did not immediately lift the freeze like he did with Trump’s travel ban imposed against people from mostly Muslim-majority countries. As a result, some immigrants blocked by the travel ban found they still could not come to the United States because of the freeze.
President Biden’s actions come only days after thousands of visa lottery winners at risk of having their visas expire, won a court order that put their visas on hold. This means they will be allowed to use their visas to enter the country despite the longstanding rule that visas must be used within six months of being obtained.
The United States makes available up to 55,000 visas a year for immigrants whose nationalities are underrepresented in the US population.
Meanwhile, President Biden has proposed legislation that would limit Presidential authority to issue future bans against immigrants, also calling for the US to increase the number of diversity visas available via the lottery each year from 55,000 to 80,000.
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