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Worried that illegal immigrants may feel undue stress, Homeland Securitys legal immigration agency has now deleted a standard warning to people that overstayed their visas that they ran the risk of being deported.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services operations center issued the directive Wednesday, saying the agency is rolling back a Trump policy that anyone who applied but was rejected for legal immigration status should be referred for deportation, through whats known in government-speak as an NTA, or Notice to Appear.

But in addition to canceling the policy, the operations center said it was also deleting the caution that being in the country illegally could mean deportation.

This guidance will ensure the Agency is not placing undue stress on the customer who believes he/she may or may not receive an NTA based on the information provided in their denial notification, read the directive, which was seen by The Washington Times.

The agency confirmed the move, saying it was carrying out an Inauguration Day change by the new administration revoking Trump-era moves, but suggested it was still in the early stages of working through the update.

USCIS will issue additional implementation guidance on this issue in the near future, the agency said.

Notices to appear are akin to a summons for immigration court, where a judge would rule on whether the migrant has the right to stay.

They are traditionally issued by agents and officers at Customs and Border Protection who encounter illegal immigrants at the border, and by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers who come across illegal immigrants in the interior.

But USCIS, as an immigration agency, has always had the same authority, and the Trump team in 2018 said it would begin to flex that power.

Those who applied for an upgrade in their immigration status but were deemed ineligible, and who were thus in the country without permission, were to be issued NTAs. People who overstayed visas were particular targets of the new policy.

Its not clear how often people were actually issued NTAs.

The Washington Times inquired over the past couple of years about the data but was never provided any numbers, though experts said its unlikely many people were snared.

But Jessica Vaughan, policy studies director at the Center for Immigration Studies, said the warning is still important as a statement of law, even if the Biden team wants to stop referring people for deportation.

Theres no reason not to warn the rejected applicants that they are potentially removable, even if they are not a priority, she said.

She also questioned USCISs use of the word customer to refer to people who, in this situation, end up being illegal immigrants because they filed bogus asylum cases, had criminal records that made them ineligible, or committed fraud.

They brazenly tried to exploit our immigration system, but are to be treated as customers who must be treated gently, and definitely not be frightened by the suggestion that they should leave before they are removed, she said.

Excerpt from:
DHS deletes deportation warning over fears of 'undue stress' to illegal immigrants - Washington Times

While theres little question that entering or remaining in a country without official authorization is unlawful, considerable controversy exists among governments and the general public about what should be the consequences for illegal immigration.

Possible government policies for dealing with those who illegally enter the country or unlawfully overstay a temporary visa cover a broad range of options.

At one extreme is amnesty or legalization, which often leads to citizenship for those meeting certain criteria, including residing in the country for a number of years, paying back taxes and not having committed a serious crime or felony.

At the other extreme is repatriation or deportation, which typically involves returning those who are unlawfully resident, particularly those who have also been convicted of crimes, back to their countries of origin.

In between those two extremes are a myriad of policy options to address illegal immigration that are often acrimoniously debated among a variety of competing interests, factions and groups.

Regarding the immigration process, a widespread consensus exists among governments and the general public that people wishing to immigrate should do so legally and safely, not unlawfully and dangerously. However, the large numbers of men, women and children wishing to immigrate far exceed the visas that receiving countries are normally prepared to grant. Consequently, with little or no opportunities for legal migration, many women and men turn to illegal immigration or overstay short-term visas.

A global survey undertaken several years ago reported that more than 750 million adult men and women wish to emigrate to another country. In striking contrast, the annual number of immigrants worldwide in recent years has been no more than about 5 million.

In the case of the United States, which is the largest destination country, the number of immigrants in the recent past has been around 1 million per year. However, the number of those wishing to emigrate to the United States is estimated at more than 150 million.

As a result of those huge demographic differences in the supply and demand of migrants, a worldwide clash involving many millions of people is taking place between those wishing to get into another country and those wishing to keep them out of their country.

There are a variety of arguments and concerns put forward for policies to deal with unauthorized migrants. While the areas of concerns are similar their interpretations and reasoning differ greatly.

Advocates for amnesty and regularization, for example, rely on compassion, costs, fairness, family integrity, economics, exploitation, logistics and security to make their case. They maintain that after residing and working in a country for many years, unauthorized migrants should be permitted to remain in the country, apply for legal residency and be eligible for citizenship.

Moreover, they firmly believe that unauthorized migrants should not be returned to extremely difficult and often dangerous living conditions in their origin countries. That position is felt to be especially relevant for those who were unlawfully brought into the country as children, often referred to as Dreamers.

Some U.S. jurisdictions, including cities, counties and states, do not agree with current immigration laws and do not fully cooperate with federal authorities regarding the arrest, detention and repatriation of unauthorized migrants. Some of those jurisdictions have become places of sanctuary for unauthorized migrants.

Those places have taken steps to integrate and assist unauthorized migrants and their families. Those steps include granting drivers licenses, issuing identification cards, providing support and passing laws and provisions to prohibit asking about or disclosing an individuals immigration status.

In addition, some Democratic presidential candidates and others want to decriminalize illegal U.S. border crossings. They argue that the current statute, Title 8, Section 1325 of the U.S. federal code, is of grave importance because it could be used in punitive fashion in the future against families and children under a policy similar to zero tolerance.

In contrast, those opposed to granting amnesty or legalization stress the importance of the rule of law, border security, crime, fairness, rewards, incentives, wage effects, public trust, societal costs and communal cohesion. Those who have broken the immigration laws, they maintain, should not be rewarded with citizenship or regularization.

They maintain that amnesty and legalization not only establishes an incentive for future illegal immigration, but it also undermines the publics trust, creates social cleavages, redirects resources away from citizens and erodes support for legal immigration. Also, commitments to secure the borders in the future with meaningful enforcement, they maintain, invariably fail to materialize or are largely ineffective.

In addition, the promise of amnesty assists smugglers and human traffickers in their illegal immigration and exploitation activities. Government policies to stand down on deporting unauthorized migrants also helps smugglers in their efforts to recruit men, women as well as unaccompanied minors.

Despite the policies and programs of governments and the wishes of the general public in the destination countries, illegal immigration is expected to continue for the foreseeable future. The more developed regions, many with declining populations and aging rapidly, continue to attract foreign workers at virtually every employment level. The less developed regions, in contrast, have relatively young growing populations, with many in the working ages facing difficulties finding gainful employment and harsh living conditions.

As a result of those striking demographic and economic differences, increasing numbers of men and women in developing countries, especially those in the least developed, are deciding to migrate illegally to the comparatively wealthier nations.

What should be the consequences for those who migrate illegally or overstay a temporary visa continues to be a contentious, divisive political issue challenging governments and the public.

The outcome of the current White House and Congressional negotiations concerning immigration reform and the status of unauthorized migrants is uncertain. However, based on the experience of the recent past under both Republican and Democratic administrations, it appears likely that the outcome, with the possible exception of the Dreamers, will largely be a continuation of the status quo, including the hurried issuance of presidential executive actions.

Joseph Chamie is an independent consulting demographer, a former director of the United Nations Population Division and author of numerous publications on population issues, including his recent book, "Births, Deaths, Migrations and Other Important Population Matters."

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What should be the consequences for illegal immigration? | TheHill - The Hill

President Joe Biden signed a series of executive orders Tuesday aimed at undoing several Trump administration policies, with a focus on reuniting families separated at the border. But the orders did not address deportations, a recurring point of debate in Bidens campaign and over the last several administrations, and advocates worry that a legal battle has already muddled an initial effort by Biden to pull back on some of Trumps hardline enforcement policies.

On the day of Bidens inauguration, the acting homeland security secretaryissued a memorandum that ordered a 100-day moratorium on deportations, and rescinded a Trump-era policy that had directed federal authorities to prioritize the arrest and removal of a broad swath of immigrants living in the country without documentation, calling for more prosecutorial discretion in deciding these cases.

The hope was that the memo would protect immigrants from being deported for low-level criminal charges while Congress considered more comprehensive changes. White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Tuesday the administration would take the time to review immigration policies enacted under Trump in order to put in place an immigration process so people can be treated humanely, but gave no further details on deportations.

WATCH: How President Bidens policy shifts are impacting immigrants

While Trump made targeting non-citizens and their families for removal a cornerstone of his immigration policy, the deportation machine has a long, bipartisan history, which has for decades relied on law enforcement targeting non-citizens for large-scale deportations, said Adam Goodman, a professor of Latin American and Latino Studies at University of Illinois at Chicago. Biden will face significant challenges no matter how sweeping or ambitious his plans for immigration reform, he said.

Bidens immediate effort to reverse course on enforcement has not necessarily made immigrant communities safer, say advocates who represent clients facing deportation, because it has already been weakened by a court and federal authorities have not followed the directive.

A federal judge in Texas blocked the Biden administration last Tuesday from enforcing the ban on deportations for a period of 14 days, creating confusion about whether immigrants facing imminent removal from the country are actually protected under the Biden memo.

And although the memo set forth new enforcement priorities for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and Customs and Border Protection directing the agencies to focus primarily on detaining and deporting undocumented immigrants deemed a threat to national security or public safety, or who recently crossed the border illegally it specified that the priorities would not take effect until Feb. 1, leaving a gap in directive between then and Inauguration Day. Some advocates say they believe this prompted a rush by ICE, in particular, to target immigrants for removal before the new guidance took effect.

Hundreds of immigrants have been removed from the country in recent days, according to the Associated Press, which reported that ICE deported 15 people to Jamaica last Thursday, and 269 people to Honduras and Guatemala last Friday. It was not clear how many were deported because they pose a threat to public safety or national security, the two priorities for deportation set forth in the new Biden memo.

Lawyers representing immigrants say they have received conflicting messages from federal authorities in the weeks since the acting DHS secretary signed the memo regarding deportations.

One such case was that of 27-year-old Javier Castillo Maradiaga, a Bronx resident whose protection under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program (DACA) expired in 2019 and was scheduled to be deported to Honduras from a detention center in Louisiana last week, according to his lawyer, despite continued pleas from his family, activists and lawmakers to let him stay in the country. Though Maradiaga, who was brought to the U.S. from Honduras at 7 years old, was not ultimately placed on a deportation flight, his case prompted several lawmakers including Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and Ritchie Torres, D-N.Y., to send a letter calling on ICE to grant Maradiagas request for a stay of removal and reunite him with his family.

READ MORE: U.S. wont make immigration arrests at virus vaccination sites

This case sort of illustrates the difficulty that advocates are having in this transitional period in between administrations, said Cristina Velez, a senior staff attorney with the National Immigration Project working with the lawyers representing Maradiaga.

Maradiagas lawyers, who are with the advocacy group UNLocal, Inc., said he did not apply to renew his DACA status after Trump became president for fear he would be targeted by federal authorities. While DACA protections remain in place, the fate of the program has been uncertain for the past few years following Trumps efforts to end it in 2017 (a move the Supreme Court ultimately blocked).

Maradiaga was arrested in the Bronx for jaywalking in December 2019, according to NPR, and was transferred to ICE detention shortly thereafter. Maradiagas charges have since been dismissed and sealed, according to UNLocal executive director Terry Lawson, but ICE became aware of a deportation order against Maradiaga from 2004, when he was 9 years old, before he received DACA protection.

An immigration judge granted Castillo-Maradiaga a voluntary departure, Sept. 3, 2003. He was given until Jan. 1, 2004 to depart the U.S. and he failed to comply, ICE said of the case in a written statement provided to the PBS NewsHour. The agency said that an immigration judge denied Maradiagas motion for a stay of removal last year, and that he remains in ICE custody.

Velez said Maradiaga should be protected from deportation under Bidens recent memo. But he was flown back and forth from ICE detention in New York to a facility in Louisiana twice last week, which she said prompted efforts into the 11th hour to figure out if he would be on a deportation flight.

These are the kinds of problems that result from any kind of categorical moratorium, Velez said, positing that even if the 100-day moratorium had not been blocked by a judge, immigrants would still likely be subject to potential errors or misapplication of the order by ICE. Thats sort of reflective of the culture that was certainly allowed to flourish under Trump at ICE, which was very aggressive in using its enforcement authority, Velez said.

Maradiagas lawyer received word this week that he had been granted a 30 day stay of removal by ICE and would be transferred back to New York, according to Lawson. She said she hoped that ICE would honor the new priorities set forth in Bidens memo and release Maradiaga from detention.

As Goodman argues in his book, The Deportation Machine, which looks at the history of deportation and its effect on immigrants lives, U.S. officials have collaborated for centuries to target and expel migrants, whether through laws such as the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882 or government-sanctioned campaigns such as Operation Wetback in 1954, which resulted in the removal of hundreds of thousands Mexican nationals from the the U.S., the historian estimates.

During his campaign, voters questioned Biden about the high number of deportations that occurred during his time as vice president under Barack Obama, who was dubbed deporter-in-chief after the number of immigrants removed from the U.S. reached an initial peak during his first term.

But immigration experts say the current deportation pipeline didnt simply start with Obama it can be traced back to 1996, when Bill Clinton signed into law a bill that instituted sweeping changes to enforcement. Titled the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act, the bill made more immigrants eligible for deportation and narrowed their pathways to citizenship. Under the law, non-citizens charged with misdemeanors and felonies could be subject to removal by federal authorities.

READ MORE: Joe Biden to propose 8-year citizenship path for immigrants

Deportations rose steadily in the years after the 1996 bill was signed and reached record highs while Obama was in office. He entered the White House shortly after the establishment of the Secure Communities program, which allowed the Department of Homeland Security to automatically identify immigrants in U.S. jails who were eligible for deportation using biometric data. At the same time, collaboration between local and federal law enforcement increased with the use of 287(g) agreements, which allowed ICE to train state and local officers to assist them in identifying, detaining and processing undocumented immigrants.

You had this amplification of cooperation with the state and local law enforcement agencies, and that was something new, said Randy Capps, an expert on immigration trends with the Migration Policy Institute, of the 287(g) agreements, which authorities started signing in large numbers around 2005. It had never been done really on a large scale before.

Obama inherited all this infrastructure, Capps continued, adding that his administration did very little to slow it down during his first term.

In Fiscal Year 2009, more than 390,00 immigrants were deported, according to a Department of Homeland Security report, the seventh consecutive record high at the time. The majority of those removed from the country had not been convicted of a crime; among those who did have a criminal charge on their record, the most common offenses were related to illegal drug activity, traffic offenses, or immigration-related violations. Deportations continued to rise through Fiscal Year 2014, although during this time the types of removals shifted. By 2013, 70 percent of deportations were carried out at the border by CBP, while the number of immigrants deported by ICE from the interior of the country typically those who had been in the country for a longer time dropped, according to a Migration Policy Institute report. Biden called the record number of non-citizen removals that occurred while he was vice president a big mistake, and has vowed to do better.

While the Obama administration shifted its enforcement priorities to focus mainly on those who crossed the border recently or with violent criminal charges effectively shielding nearly 90 percent of undocumented immigrants from deportation the protections were rescinded by Trump, who promised to deport millions, including non-citizens who had no serious criminal record, as part of his crackdown on immigration.

The Trump administration did not ultimately deport more immigrants than Obama, in part because of local and state authorities. In response to Trumps early actions in office, many jurisdictions terminated their agreements with ICE and pledged to protect their undocumented populations, Capps said. While arrests and deportations rose by around 40 percent during Trumps first nine months in office, he never got much above half of the peak [during Obama], and the reason why is they were unsuccessful in overturning the sanctuary policies.

Naureen Shah, an attorney with the ACLU who has recently met with detained people from countries such as Cuba and Venezuela facing deportation, pointed out that some local authorities tightened their relationship with ICE during the Trump administration. States such as Florida and Texas are still honoring a number of agreements with the federal agency to track down undocumented immigrants in the criminal justice system. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton was also behind the lawsuit to block the Biden administrations 100-day pause on deportations.

During the coronavirus pandemic, ICE significantly pulled back on its operations due to health concerns, Capps said. In April 2020, arrests went down by about half from the previous month, he said. Overall the detained population, which generally averages around 45,000, had decreased to about 20,000 by the end of the year, according to ICE figures.

Goodman said this drop offers a glimpse of what a less punitive system could look like. Weve seen that this drop is possible. There are political decisions that government officials make as to whether or not to detain people. And the pandemic has shown us for very good reasons that such a high number of immigrants do not need to be detained, he said.

Even though deportations went down while Trump was in office, advocates say the fear and confusion his administration has sown among these communities should not be discounted. ICE deported more migrant family members in 2020 than the last three fiscal years combined, suggesting that the types of people targeted by federal authorities have evolved with the Trump administrations crackdown on asylum-seekers from Central American countries at the border.

Ive been to these detention sites and interviewed people there and they are begging for information about whats going on for them, Shah said, noting that these immigrants often dont have access to a lawyer, nor the resources to secure one using the internet.

Advocates are hoping Biden will bring meaningful reform to ICE, but a last-minute agreement signed by former Trump Department of Homeland Security official Ken Cuccinelli and the union representing ICE, as reported by Buzzfeed News, could hamper his efforts. In a letter sent to Congressional committees and the departments inspector general, a whistleblower alleged that these agreements confer on the union the ability to indefinitely delay changes to immigration enforcement policies and practices as well.

READ MORE: The challenges Biden will face on immigration reform

Advocates and experts who deal with cases of people in the crosshairs of the criminal justice and immigration systems say that Bidens success will be contingent on whether federal agencies including ICE honor the changes put forth by the administration.

Regardless of whether theres a moratorium in place, or whether the new administration shifts its approach to removal in general, one of the concerns is whether these changes will be honored uniformly by ICE, Velez said. The Biden revised enforcement priorities are a welcome step in the right direction, but the memo continues to allow ICE to depart from those enforcement priorities. Theyre not required to adhere to these enforcement priorities necessarily.

In a statement to the PBS NewsHour, ICE said that it continues to make custody determinations on a case by case basis, in accordance with U.S. law and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) policy, adding that during the course of routine operations, individuals can be released from custody based on the facts and circumstances of their cases.

The president has said he would propose a bill to legalize the 11 million undocumented immigrants currently living in the U.S. For Goodman, this would be one of the best ways to slow down deportations for good.

The best way to abolish ICE, Goodman said, referring to calls by some members of the left to get rid of the federal agency, would be to pass legislation that includes legalization of undocumented people currently in the country and also expands the legal channels through which future migrants can enter the country The fewer people that come into contact with the deportation machine, the better.

Polling indicates the Trump administrations hardline policies on immigration did not fall in line with mainstream public opinion. Nearly 8 in 10 Americans say that immigration is good for the country, according to Gallup polling released in July 2020. The same poll found 34 percent of Americans would like to see immigration increase, the highest level of support for expanding it since 1965.

But a divided Congress could make it difficult to chart a viable path forward on significant immigration reform. Advocates said they expect a Republican backlash to Bidens proposed immigration policies, and this could certainly extend to any efforts to pass bipartisan legislation on the issue at the federal level.

Goodman said he expects immigrant communities to be paying close attention to whether Biden will be able to move the needle on the issue: People do not want to hear Biden talk. They want to see him act.

Editors note: This article has been updated to reflect Goodmans estimate of removal figures from Operation Wetback, the 1954 campaign to deport Mexican nationals from the U.S.

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Why reforming the U.S. approach to deportations could be Bidens biggest immigration challenge - PBS NewsHour

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Joe Biden on Tuesday ordered a review of asylum processing at the U.S.-Mexico border and the immigration system as he seeks to undo some of former President Donald Trumps hardline policies.

Biden also created a task force to reunite migrant families who were separated at the border by Trumps 2018 zero tolerance strategy.

We are going to work to undo the moral and national shame of the previous administration that literally, not figuratively, ripped children from the arms of their families, Biden said, as he signed the three immigration-related executive orders at the White House.

The executive orders called for a dizzying array of reviews and reports that could trigger policy changes in the weeks and months ahead, but provide limited immediate relief to immigrants barred by Trump-era rules.

Immigration advocates have urged the new Democratic administration to quickly undo Trumps policies but Biden aides say they need time to unravel the many layers of immigration restrictions and to put in place more migrant-friendly systems.

Its not going to happen overnight, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said on Tuesday.

The cautious strategy reflects the tightrope Biden is walking to reverse hardline Trump policies while simultaneously trying to prevent a surge in illegal immigration. Biden opponents could also derail or slow down his agenda with lawsuits if his administration moves too quickly and fails to follow proper procedures.

In a sign of the wary approach, Bidens executive orders on Tuesday did not repeal an order known as Title 42, which was issued under Trump to stop the spread of the coronavirus and allows U.S. authorities to expel almost all people caught crossing the border illegally.

He did, however, mandate a review of the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), a Trump program that ordered 65,000 asylum seekers to wait in Mexico for their U.S. court hearings.

The Biden administration has stopped adding people to the program but has not yet outlined how it will process the claims of those already in it.

Across the border in Mexico, migrants enrolled in MPP said they were anxious for news about Bidens plans for the program.

I dont understand why he doesnt just say what hes going to do, said Cuban asylum seeker Yuri Gonzalez, who has been waiting for over a year in Ciudad Juarez.

Chad Wolf, former acting U.S. Department of Homeland Security secretary under Trump, said in an interview that halting the MPP program was a mistake because it had been an effective deterrent to illegal immigration.

If you do have a surge (of migrants), youre taking one of your tools off the table, he said in reference to the program.

Michelle Brane, a senior director with the New York City-based Womens Refugee Commission, said advocates had been hoping for Bidens orders to be more immediate and operational, but that they would wait and see what concrete steps U.S. immigration agencies take to implement the directives.

The tone of Bidens orders on Tuesday differed dramatically from Trumps incendiary immigration rhetoric depicting asylum seekers as a security threat or an economic drain on the United States.

Securing our borders does not require us to ignore the humanity of those who seek to cross them, reads the order dealing with asylum.

But opposition from Republicans continues and lawsuits by conservative groups could potentially slow down Bidens agenda. A federal judge last week temporarily blocked one of his first immigration moves - a 100-day pause on many deportations - after the Republican-led state of Texas sought an injunction.

Trump won the presidency in 2016 while making border security a major theme of his campaign. If Biden fails to prevent surges in illegal immigration at the U.S.-Mexico border, he could give ammunition to Republicans in the 2022 congressional elections, said Sarah Pierce, a policy analyst with the Washington-based Migration Policy Institute.

This is the thing that rallied Donald Trump supporters, she said.

Biden, on the other hand, pledged in his 2020 election campaign to move quickly to reunite parents and children separated at the southern border and the task force set up on Tuesday is aimed at fulfilling that promise.

However, it will face a daunting challenge in trying to track down the parents of more than 600 children who remain separated, according to a January court filing in a related case. The children are living with relatives or in foster care, an attorney representing plaintiffs in the litigation told Reuters.

The task force will be led by Alejandro Mayorkas, one of the senior officials said on Monday. The U.S. Senate on Tuesday confirmed Mayorkas as the new head of the Department of Homeland Security, the first Latino and immigrant to hold that position.

Bidens executive orders on Tuesday also called for a review of Trumps so-called public charge rule, which makes it harder for poorer immigrants to obtain permanent residency in the United States.

The review is expected to start the process to rescind it, according to two people familiar with the plan.

Bidens asylum-focused order called on U.S. agencies to address drivers of migration in Central America, expand legal pathways to the United States and consider ending Trump-era asylum pacts with Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras.

After the order, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a written statement the United States intended to suspend and terminate the agreements, which sought to allow asylum seekers from other countries to be sent to those nations.

Reporting by Ted Hesson and Steve Holland in Washington; Additional reporting by Laura Gottesdiener in Monterrey, Mexico, and Jonathan Landay in Washington; Editing by Ross Colvin, Alistair Bell, Rosalba OBrien and Gerry Doyle

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Biden to issue executive orders on asylum, legal immigration, separated families - Reuters

This is one in a series of articles looking at the issues being tackled by the new Biden administration, from the perspective of the average American. Our focus here is immigration, one of the central themes of Donald Trump's presidential campaign in 2016 and the focus of high-profile policy actions taken throughout his four years in office. Within hours of Joe Biden's inauguration, however, the newly elected president began the process of reversing a number of those policies with executive orders of his own.

Interestingly, despite Biden's focus on immigration, the data make it clear that the issue of immigration is no longer nearly as top of mind for Americans as it has been at other times in recent history. My colleague Jeff Jones did an excellent job in July 2019 reviewing the data which at that point showed a record-high 27% of Americans mentioning immigration as the nation's most important problem. This was only the fourth time in Gallup history that immigration topped the list, propelled to the forefront of public consciousness that year by concerns over reports of large numbers of refugees moving up from Central America toward the U.S.

Now, almost no Americans think first of immigration when asked to name the nation's top problem, reflecting the overriding impact of the pandemic, problems with the nation's governance in this time of transition and the pending second impeachment trial of Donald Trump. This is a continuation of what we have seen now for a number of months; only 1% or 2% of Americans have mentioned immigration as the top problem since last April. I don't think this means immigration has ceased to be a concern for the average American, but rather that it is an issue whose salience waxes and wanes depending on how much it is in the news and on how much other issues dominate the news landscape.

Clearly, the issue is in a "wane" phase at this point, even when Americans are asked about it explicitly. Pew Research recently rated the importance of immigration policy as part of a list of concerns, with immigration coming in 14th out of the 19 issues tested in terms of Americans saying it should be a top priority for the president and Congress to address this year -- so designated by just 39% of Americans. That is far below the 80% and 78% priority ratings given to strengthening the economy and dealing with the coronavirus situation, respectively.

Nevertheless, despite immigration's lack of status as a front-burner issue for Americans, Biden has moved ahead with rapidity in operationalizing his plans to countermand Trump's immigration-related policies. So far, most of what Biden has done seems to fit well with majority public opinion, highlighting the evident fact that much of what Trump did in relationship to immigration -- while appealing to parts of his political base -- was out of sync with the attitudes of the average American.

The Border Wall. Biden, on the day he was inaugurated, ordered a pause in border wall construction, rescinding the national emergency declaration Trump used to divert billions from the Department of Defense for the wall's construction. Biden has ordered a review to decide what to do going forward relating to barriers along the nation's border with Mexico. This came just days after Trump himself made a gesture of support for his wall project, taking his last official trip as president (except for his final flight to Florida on Jan. 20) to the Texas-Mexico border to applaud and reinforce the wall's construction. American public opinion is clearly on Biden's side on this issue; Gallup and a wide variety of surveys done by other organizations have consistently shown opposition to building the wall.

Muslim Travel Ban. Biden also quickly issued a proclamation revoking the ban on travelers from several majority-Muslim countries, put in place by Trump as one of his first official actions four years earlier. Again, Biden ordered a review to determine what should come next in terms of adjusting the country's visa policies. There hasn't been a lot of public opinion surveying about the ban in recent years, but attitudes, while mixed, tilted negative when the ban was first announced by Trump.

DACA. Biden also issued an executive memorandum calling on the Department of Homeland Security to "preserve and fortify" DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) -- the Obama-era policy that deferred the deportation of certain undocumented immigrants who were brought into the U.S. as children. Biden also urged Congress to create a pathway to citizenship for the so-called "Dreamers" and others living in the country illegally. These actions too fit with the views of the average American. One of the consistent findings from Gallup and other polling organizations over the years has been support for allowing children brought into the United States illegally to become legal residents and citizens. The majority of Americans also more generally support a pathway to citizenship for those living here without legal documentation.

Illegal Immigration. All of this is not to say that Americans are indifferent to illegal immigration. They are not. Americans evince strong support for such things as increased Border Patrol funding and increased security along the border with Mexico (but as noted, not building a wall).

Legal Immigration. We also know that the average American is positive about the general idea of legal immigration into this country. Last summer, Gallup noted that for the first time since we began asking about immigration levels in 1965, more Americans said that immigration should be increased rather than decreased, while a very slight plurality said it should remain the same. In the same poll, 77% said that immigration is a good thing for the country today -- by one percentage point, the highest in this trend. Plus, new Gallup polling shows the percentage of Americans who are both dissatisfied with the level of immigration into this country and want less immigration is at its lowest point in Gallup's 20-year history of asking the question. These data suggest that Americans want their elected representatives to take into account the positive impact of immigration on the nation as well as its downsides and negatives.

Clearly, if the views of the average American held sway, the president and Congress would figure out how to develop the type of comprehensive immigration plan that has for so long been a topic of legislative discussion, dealing simultaneously with all of the disparate pieces of the immigration puzzle. This is, in my way of thinking, similar to discussions on infrastructure -- a concept widely accepted as a priority focus for new legislation, but one about which our elected representatives can't seem to get anything done.

Biden's call to review the context for immigration policies before rushing to recommend legislation seems to fit well with this focus on a comprehensive plan. Immigration is a very complex issue -- encompassing policies on legal entry into the country, efforts to stop illegal entry, and the great challenge of dealing with those who are already here but who are undocumented. The idea of pausing to look at all of this together and developing a way forward that takes it all into account in some type of rational way, rather than enacting scattershot policies in isolation, seems to be well in line with the sentiments of the average American.

Continued here:
The Average American Weighs in on Immigration - Gallup Poll