The open borders lobby is urging Democrat Joe Biden to quickly grant an amnesty for illegal aliens living in the United States, potentially through a little-known federal program that keeps foreign nationals from being deported.
In interviews with NPR, activists with a number of open borders and mass migration organizations say they are asking Biden and his transition team to consider signing executive orders that will provide amnesty to illegal aliens, return deported illegal aliens to the U.S., and free border crossers into the interior of the U.S. so long as they claim asylum.
NPR reported:
Recognizing that the political divide in Congress makes a major overhaul of the immigration system unlikely, the groups are pushing for Biden to use the power of his pen to take steps sooner rather than later. [Emphasis added]
Their requests include returning undocumented immigrants wrongfully deported under Trump, stopping detention of asylum-seekers, expanding the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program and using other executive powers, like granting temporary protected status, to protect more undocumented immigrants. [Emphasis added]
The groups — including United We Dream, Movimiento Cosecha, and the Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services — see a window for drastic changes to the U.S. immigration system that spans the first year of what could be Biden’s first term.
Amnesty for illegal aliens via executive order has been floated recently by Leon Fresco, the architect of the “Gang of Eight” 2013 amnesty, who now serves on the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Advisory Board thanks to former Acting DHS Secretary Kevin McAleenan.
Fresco suggested that Biden and his pick to lead DHS, Alejandro Mayorkas, use the Chinese coronavirus pandemic to grant amnesty to all 11 million to 22 million illegal aliens living in the U.S. The amnesty would be done formally through the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) program.
The requests come as a group of House Democrats is planning a resolution to push Biden far beyond the Obama administration’s lax immigration enforcement measures and into territory where illegal aliens would have legal routes to remain in the U.S. even after they have committed crimes.
The House Democrats’ resolution would also eliminate all detention of adult border crossers so long as they arrive with children, and end local law enforcement’s ability to partner with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency to ensure criminal illegal aliens are not released back into the communities they have victimized.
Biden has said he will send an amnesty for 11 million to 22 million illegal aliens to the U.S. Senate in his first 100 days. Likewise, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) has suggested that elected Democrats are already working on the amnesty plan.
Biden’s transition team is already being warned by those close to his policy circles that they could cause a surge at the U.S.-Mexico border if they revoke President Trump’s reforms to the immigration system, which have weeded out fraud and effectively ended the Catch and Release program.
“They can’t say, ‘Oh, wait, migrants, don’t arrive just yet. We’re not going to be nasty to you. But don’t come for another two months so we can get this in place.’ Like, that’s not how it works,” a former Bush and Obama official told NPR of Biden’s transition team.
Every year, about 1.2 million legal immigrants are awarded green cards and another 1.4 million foreign nationals are given visas to arrive in the U.S. These legal immigration admissions are in addition to the hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens who annually cross U.S. borders and overstay their visas.
The nation’s decades-long mass immigration consensus in Washington, DC, has surged the level of foreign workers in the U.S. labor market with whom working and middle class Americans are forced to compete for jobs.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.