President Trump affected immigration more than any other policy area in the US. His policies barely impacted the population of illegal immigrants. However, Trump succeeded in severely reducing the inflow of legal immigrants on green cards. He further reduced the number of non-immigrant visas. Trump enacted these reductions in legal immigration in April 2020 in response to the recession caused by COVID-19.

Since coming to office in January 2021, the Biden administration has undertaken to restart legal immigration to help grow the US economy. It has vowed to re-instate generous refugee resettlement that has been the US norm under both Democrat and Republican presidents until 2017.  The new administration’s goal is to regularise millions of illegal migrants currently in the country, a task that is fraught with political difficulties. However, Biden has, so far, maintained Trump’s restrictive policies on the Mexican border.

President Biden should use his lawful powers as president to expand legal immigration opportunities. Biden should also work with Congress to reduce the power of future presidents to again reduce lawful immigration.