WASHINGTON - Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden says he will reverse some of U.S. President Donald Trump's restrictive immigration policies should he win in November, but the dizzying number of changes could take months or years to undo, according to policy and regulatory experts and people close to the Biden campaign.
While Biden has criticized some of these restrictions, he has not said if he would immediately reverse them. He has also not commented on emergency border rules implemented in March that allow U.S. authorities to rapidly expel border crossers, including unaccompanied children and asylum seekers. Miller argued that measures finalized under Trump will not be easy to remove, just as his administration struggled to reverse some policies put in place by previous administrations.
Several of the people voiced concern about Pope's involvement, saying it signaled a Biden administration could treat immigration as more of a national security issue than a civil rights issue. They also said it suggested a return to Obama-era policies. Lorella Praeli, co-president of the Washington-based Community Change, which works to empower people of color, women and immigrants, said"it's not enough" to return to Obama-era policies,"because so much of it wasn’t working."