Three days after Election Day, we’re still waiting for the official outcome. 

If the vote totals hold and Joe Biden wins, the former vice president has vowed to tear down Trump’s anti-immigrant wall of bureaucracy.

Under another four years of President Donald Trump, you could expect the administration to continue its unapologetic dismantling of policies and protections for immigrants.

Here’s a rundown of the biggest immigration policies promised by both campaigns. 

If Biden wins:

It’ll take a lot of work for a Biden presidency to reverse Trump’s web of restrictive immigration policies, which includes at least 400 executive actions, according to the Migration Policy Institute. An in-depth analysis by Reuters concluded that it could take years.

A Biden administration says it would: 

• Send a bill to Congress that would ensure a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. 

• Take “immediate action” to protect “Dreamers,” the undocumented youth enrolled in Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, an Obama-era policy that shields immigrants brought to the country at a young age from deportation. Since 2017, Trump has sought to end the program.

• Rescind the travel ban on people from predominantly Muslim countries, as well as end Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” policy, which has forced more than 60,000 asylum seekers to wait in Mexico while their claims are processed. 

“My immigration policy is built around keeping families together, modernizing the immigration system by keeping families’ unification and diversity as pillars of our immigration system, which it used to be,” Biden told NBC News in June.

If Trump wins:

Stephen Miller, the White House adviser behind many of Trump’s aggressive immigration policies, laid out what the next four years could look like in an interview with NBC News last week.

The administration would: 

• Continue its legal fight to end the Flores Settlement Agreement, which has protected the rights of migrant children for the past 20 years. Last year, a federal judge denied the government’s motion to terminate the settlement, and the government is now appealing the decision.

• Reduce guest worker programs such as the H-1B visa, which are temporary work permits filed by companies that want to hire high-skilled immigrants when there’s a shortage of American workers. As Reveal alum Sinduja Rangarajan reported last year, the denial rate for first-time applications increased from 10% in 2016 to 24% in 2019.

• Continue the border shutdown. At the start of the pandemic, Trump essentially blocked immigration at the border under Title 42 of the U.S. Code, which bans immigration if there is a "serious danger of the introduction of … disease into the United States." With the border closed, asylum seekers are denied the chance to even make their case.

• Enter into more “safe third country” agreements, which require that migrants on their way to the U.S. first claim asylum in countries that lack the proper resources and infrastructure to help them. If asylum seekers arrive at the U.S. border before first seeking protection in one of these countries, they’re subject to deportation. The U.S. entered into one of these agreements with Guatemala. 

"The president would like to expand that to include the rest of the world," Miller said. "And so if you create safe third partners in other continents and other countries and regions, then you have the ability to share the burden of asylum seekers on a global basis."

Fact-based journalism is worth fighting for.

3 THINGS WE’RE READING

1. Leading up to the presidential election, a mother separated from her son at the border wonders: Could they be reunited under a new administration? (The Washington Post)

More than two years ago, border agents separated Noyemi from her 3-year-old son under the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” policy that separated thousands of migrant children from their parents. She was deported to Honduras but has moved to Mexico, where she watches Telemundo and hopes that a change in the White House could increase her chances of reuniting with her son.

The kicker: In Torreón, Noyemi has so far decided not to tell (son) Jarvin about the potential path to their reunification. It seems too uncertain, predicated on intricacies of American politics that she doesn’t pretend to understand. But the boy’s 6th birthday is in January, and there have been moments when she’s had to bite her tongue before suggesting that maybe, somehow, they could be together for it. “I probably shouldn’t say anything until I’m standing in front of him,” she said. “Wouldn’t that be a nice surprise?”

2. The Trump administration is expelling migrant children from other countries to Mexico. (The New York Times)

An internal email indicates that the government is sending migrant children to Mexico, where many don’t have family members. The ACLU says the expulsions violate federal protections for children who come to the U.S. alone. In recent months, the government also has come under scrutiny for keeping children in hotels – under the supervision of adults with no child care experience – before expelling them to their home countries under Title 42 of the U.S. Code, which bans immigration if there is a "serious danger of the introduction of … disease into the United States."

The kicker: An email from the U.S. Border Patrol’s assistant chief, Eduardo Sanchez, obtained by The New York Times, makes it clear that such transfers have not only occurred, but that they are a clear violation of U.S. policy. “Recently, we have identified several suspected instances where Single Minors (SM) from countries other than Mexico have been expelled via ports of entry rather than referred to ICE Air Operations for expulsion flights,” Mr. Sanchez wrote. Referring to the federal public health statute upon which the administration’s border closure policy rests, he continued, “Please note that if not corrected, these actions will place Title 42 operations in significant jeopardy and must be ceased immediately. To reiterate, under no circumstances should a SM from a country other than Mexico be knowingly expelled to Mexico.”

3. The presidential election would decide the future of immigrants in the U.S. under Temporary Protected Status. (Tampa Bay Times)

More than 400,000 immigrants who fled their countries due to natural disasters or war are here under Temporary Protected Status, which protects them from deportation and gives them the ability to work. But the Trump administration has sought to end these protections. With the administration scheduled to begin phasing out the program Jan. 4, immigrants here under the program watch warily as the election decides their future.

The kicker: (Marco Antonio) Arita doesn’t see his family as the burden that the Trump administration labels many immigrants. He saved up for eight years, bought tools and a truck, and started his own landscaping business. He said he has never sought help from anyone in supporting his wife and their two children – Marc Anthony, 13, and Jennifer, 6. Arita and (wife Roxana) Chinchilla each pay $495 a year to renew their Temporary Protective Status. “I don’t see myself as a public charge,” Arita said. “I only see myself as a person who works for his family. So, why do they want to deport us? Our countries are not prepared to receive us."
 

NEWS BREAK: STRESSED? HERE’S A CHIPMUNK AT A TINY RESTAURANT

This week was grueling. To cope, I like to find small moments of joy in silly memes and TikTok videos. Bonus points if there’s an animal involved. Enter freelance food writer Angela Hansberger and her tiny “restaurant” for chipmunks in Atlanta.

From The Washington Post story:

Hansberger, a freelance food writer who lives in Atlanta, said she was delighted when she opened the silly package her Uncle Ed Gazdacko had sent her from Ohio. She put the wee table on her front porch and placed a few walnuts on top.

When she returned a few minutes later, she noticed that she already had a customer. Not a squirrel, but a chipmunk. And he had quite an appetite.

“He’d taken a seat like a little person and had gobbled up all the nuts,” recalled Hansberger, 49. “So I decided to leave out some more the next morning, and after that, he kept coming back.”

Hansberger named the chipmunk Thelonious Munk, after the late jazz artist Thelonious Monk. Then she decided to open a fun-size restaurant for him on her porch, since her own dining-out experiences had been put on hold because of the pandemic.

“I was really missing going to restaurants, and because I enjoy tinkering in the kitchen, I started making little meals for him,” Hansberger said. “I cut up an old bandanna I’d been using as a face mask and made it into a tiny tablecloth, and I made him some dishes out of bottle caps.”
 

Your tips have been vital to our immigration coverage. Keep them coming: [email protected]. 

– Laura C. Morel