Trump’s Green card ban has been formally reversed by President Joe Biden. Former president Donald Trump has blocked many green card applicants from entering the United States last year. Apparently, the ban was placed to protect US workers due to high unemployment due to the coronavirus pandemic.
President Joe Biden rejected this reasoning in a proclamation rescinding the visa ban on Wednesday. He said that he has prevented families from reuniting in the United States and harmed US businesses.
The President also undid some other actions including one that sought to cut funding from several cities that Mr. Donald Trump deemed “lawless” and “anarchist jurisdictions”, and other mandating that federal buildings should be designed in a classical aesthetic.
President Joe Biden seeks to press forwards with his own agenda and undo some key aspects of hos predecessor’s legacy. In the last month that President Biden has revoked dozens of Donald Trump orders and issued dozens more of his own. Immigrant advocates had pressed in recent weeks for him to lift the visa ban, which was set to expire on 31st of March. Biden left in place another ban on most foreign temporary workers.
A California-based immigration attorney, Curtis Morrison who represents people subject to the ban, said that President Biden will now have to tackle a growing backlog of applications that have been held up for months as the pandemic shut down most visa processing by the state department. The process could potentially take years, he said.
“It’s a backlog that Trump created,” Morrison said. “He broke the immigration system.”
Trump issued a memorandum in September that sought to identify municipal governments that permit “anarchy, violence and destruction in American cities.” The memorandum followed protests over George Floyd’s killing by Minneapolis police. The justice department identified New York City, Portland, Oregon, and Seattle as three cities that could have federal funding slashed. Those cities in turn filed a lawsuit to invalidate the designation, and fight off the Trump administration’s efforts to withhold federal dollars.
Pete Holmes, the city attorney of Seattle, welcomed the Biden revocation, saying he was “glad to have this nonsense cleared from the decks”.
President Biden has reversed another order issued by former President Trump which mandated federal buildings back again to a more classical style of architecture. The memorandum added that architects should look to “America’s beloved landmark buildings” such as the White House, the US Capitol, the supreme court, the Department of the Treasury and the Lincoln Memorial for inspiration.
Biden also revoked a 2018 order that called for agency heads across the government to review welfare programs – such as food stamps, Medicaid and housing aid – and strengthening work requirements for certain recipients.