COURTESY HT FEB 3
Biden to sign 3 orders to ease immigration
US President Joe Biden REUTERS
Yashwant Raj
yashwant.raj@hindustantimes.com
Washington : US President Joe Biden will sign three executive orders on Tuesday that will reunite families separated by Donald Trump’s hardline policies, improve access to the asylum system and make it more humane, and remove barriers from legal immigration.
The first executive order will create a taskforce to reunite parents and children separated by the Trump administration’s “zero-tolerance” policy, to be headed by Alejandro Mayorkas, Biden’s nominee for homeland security department chief.
The second order will address the root of irregular migration in a three-step plan, to be coordinated with countries in the region. It will also review the asylum protocol that forced applicants to stay in Mexico as they waited for months for court hearings.
The third order will seek to remove barriers from legal immigration. It will instruct government agencies dealing with immigration to conduct a “top-to-bottom review of recent regulations”. Under the scanner will be the “public charge” rule, under which the US could turn down immigration applicants who would need government assistance to survive.
‘Trump aimed mob like a loaded cannon’
House of Representatives Democrats who will prosecute Trump in his second impeachment trial said in a brief filed on Tuesday he pointed a mob “like a loaded cannon” at the Capitol shortly before a deadly January 6 rampage. Trump also faced a Tuesday deadline to respond to the article of impeachment passed by the House on January 13.
With inputs from agencies