The American Immigration Council does not endorse or oppose candidates for elected office. We aim to provide an analysis of the election’s impact on the U.S. immigration system.
President-elect Donald Trump has vowed to deport millions of immigrants as he seeks a second term in the White House. This week, we got a clearer picture of how he plans to fulfill this promise. Tom Homan, a former acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), will oversee border policy and work to fulfill Trump’s promise of mass deportations. Homan, the architect of President Trump’s “zero tolerance” family separation policy, supports making all illegal immigrants subject to deportation. And Stephen Miller, the architect behind the travel ban imposed on non-citizens from several Muslim-majority countries and many other immigration restrictions, is rumored to be joining the ranks as deputy chief of staff for policy. are.
Although the federal government currently lacks the resources to make good on President Trump’s promise of mass deportations in his first months in office, ICE must act quickly to target immigrants for arrest. can and will. But before that begins, President Biden has 68 days in office to take decisive action to protect people at risk under President Trump’s indiscriminate immigration enforcement plan. It is being
Protecting DACA recipients and non-national workers
The United States continues to face chronic labor shortages caused by the pandemic, an aging workforce and declining birth rates, and economists say immigration is key to filling those gaps. The Department of Homeland Security is aggressively shortening work permit processing times to ensure immigrants can work despite a huge backlog that built up during President Trump’s first term and the pandemic. I have been working on this. But we know that many of these individuals, including DACA recipients, parolees, and other deferred action beneficiaries, are likely to be priority targets for the incoming administration.
According to USCIS, as of June 2024, approximately 535,000 people rely on the DACA program for protection and the ability to work legally in the United States. All have been in the United States since at least June 2007, and many for much longer. About 40,000 of them have pending renewal applications, which would give them an additional two years of protection. More requests are expected before President Trump’s term begins, as recipients are likely to seek to extend protections and work permits as far into the future as possible.
Similarly, as of September 2024, USCIS has 1.2 million work permit applications pending across various categories. Of these, 546,500 applications were filed more than six months ago. If the Trump administration reimposes the “invisible wall” policy that slowed down most U.S. immigration processing during his first term, these people will likely see their permits expire or their work permit applications left unprocessed. They face the possibility of being buried, leaving them and their employers behind. There is a risk of losing your job. Biden could direct DHS to detail additional adjudication capabilities to prioritize processing of these cases in order to clear as much of the backlog as possible before Trump takes office.
Additionally, USCIS issued an interim rule in April that automatically extends work permits if noncitizens properly submit a renewal application. This is the second time USCIS has issued this rule, due to the agency’s ongoing backlog and an attempt to limit the negative impact on immigrant families and businesses. The Biden administration asked for public comment on whether the rule should be made permanent. Given the continuing work permit backlog, Biden and Immigration and Immigration Services should immediately issue a permanent final rule on automatic work permit extensions to keep as many people working as possible.
Extend, Redesignate, and Extend Temporary Protection Status (TPS) Protection
The incoming Trump administration will likely seek to lift certain TPS designations. TPS has temporarily protected from deportation more than 863,000 noncitizens from countries where war, natural disaster, or political instability make it impossible for them to return safely. Within the first six months of the Trump administration’s second term, 10 TPS designations (covering more than 650,000 beneficiaries) expired, including designations from many countries that the Trump administration had previously sought to terminate. It is scheduled to become. The 10 countries are El Salvador (March 2025), Sudan, Ukraine, Venezuela (April 2025), Afghanistan and South Sudan (May 2025), Cameroon and Nepal (June 2025), Honduras and Nicaragua. (July 2025).
During President Trump’s first two years, the Department of Homeland Security tried to end TPS in Haiti, Nepal, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Sudan, but it only survived thanks to lawsuits and was ultimately cleared by the Biden administration. A settlement was reached. There is no guarantee that litigation will be successful in blocking President Trump’s second effort to lift these designations.
The Biden administration has the authority to extend and redesignate TPS for these countries and postpone its expiration date until mid-2026. Similarly, Biden could designate TPS for unsafe countries not currently covered by TPS, such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo or Mauritania. In October, DHS also announced the TPS designation for Lebanon, but has not published a notice allowing USCIS to begin accepting applications.
Protect temporary worker visas and expand domestic renewal programs
President Trump is also calling for significant restrictions on the processing of benefits. Unfortunately, there are several rules and programs that the Biden administration has yet to finalize that could support temporary workers, international students, and other nonimmigrant visa holders. For example, the H-1B modernization rule, which aims to make visa processing for high-skilled workers clearer and more predictable, has not yet been finalized. The regulations also clarify when applicants for these visas are employed by organizations that are not subject to the general H-1B visa caps. This change supports previous policy announced earlier this year to streamline the nonimmigrant visa process for undocumented college graduates who received DACA guidance.
Similarly, earlier this year, the Department of State (DOS) implemented a limited pilot program to allow foreign H-1B visa holders to renew their visas in the United States. Mr. Biden should encourage DOS to make this program permanent and expand the visa categories included in the Domestic Visa Renewal Program.
Preventing harm to immigrants in detention who are not a priority for deportation
Unlike the Biden administration, the Trump administration has threatened to prioritize the arrest and detention of noncitizens in the interior of the United States simply because they are in the country illegally. This includes people who have lived in the community for many years, do not pose a threat to public safety, or have no criminal history. .
To protect these people from President Trump’s aggressive enforcement policies, DHS should release those currently in custody who do not pose a risk to public safety and who have sponsors who can support them upon release. This will allow them to proceed with the immigration process from within their own communities rather than from within detention centres. This should include people eligible for parole or TPS, and people with serious health conditions. DHS may also move to dismiss the cases of people in the release process who are not a priority for enforcement.
Repeal the Trump-era rules that still remain.
Some Trump-era immigration restrictions were blocked in court or suspended when Biden took office, but some remain on the books. The remaining two rules create insurmountable hurdles for asylum seekers to receive protection. The “Restrictions on Asylum Procedures and Asylum Eligibility” Regulations imposed multiple, often overlapping restrictions on asylum and significantly narrowed the concept of asylum, so much so that even those imprisoned in Afghanistan for advocating for women’s rights may also be rejected. Those who made the unfortunate mistake of connecting on an international flight before arriving in the United States.
“Security bars and processing” regulations would allow DHS and the Department of Justice to deny asylum, withholding of deportation, and protection under the Convention Against Torture to persons entering the United States from countries with “communicable disease” outbreaks. It should have been. the current. This would allow future regimes to effectively ban humanitarian protection for all people seeking asylum from Mexico, infectious or not, and even revert to conditions of torture that violate international law. . A second Trump administration could implement this rule almost immediately. The Biden administration must act to completely repeal it.
As experts continue to search for reasons why so many voters have shifted to the right this election cycle, on some of society’s most non-negotiable issues, including housing costs, crime rates and job opportunities. It is clear that the candidates are scapegoating immigrants. Immigrant communities await the start of four more years of strict and enforceable immigration policies, but Biden has a narrow window of time to slow these changes and protect immigrants as much as possible.
Areas covered: Biden Administration, H-1B, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Temporary Protected Status, Trump Administration, USCIS
