How Biden Might Change Trump’s Immigration Policies

Long before the U.S. tightened its borders to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus, President Donald Trump set about reshaping America’s immigration system with a nationalist and isolationist bent. Promises to crack down on illegal immigration and erect a wall along the Mexican border formed the centerpiece of his election campaign in 2016. His Democratic challenger in the Nov. 3 election, former Vice President Joe Biden, embraces immigration as fundamental to the national character in a country where 99% of citizens trace their roots to somewhere else.

Trump says “illegal immigrants” -- people without the legal right to be or remain in the U.S., of whom there are an estimated 11 million ­ — “drain” government resources, are prone to commit violent crimes and take jobs from citizens. As for legal immigration, Trump argues that the system that regulates it -- which is based largely on family ties and ensures immigrants come from a diverse array of nations -- attracts undesirable newcomers, including, as he famously put it, from “shithole countries,” such as Haiti, El Salvador and nations in Africa. He expressed a preference for immigrants from Norway.