Joe Biden moves to roll back hardline Trump immigration policies

Biden orders review of asylum processing at the US-Mexico border and immigration system

Task force created to reunite migrant families separated at border by Trump’s ‘zero tolerance’ strategy

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An old border wall fence next to the newly constructed wall along the US-Mexico border next to Tijuana, east of San Diego, California. Photo: Reuters

Published: 1:18pm, 3 Feb 2021Updated: 8:37pm, 3 Feb 2021

Joe Biden’s immigration reform push received a boost Tuesday when the Senate confirmed his pick to head the Department of Homeland Security, as the US president seeks to roll back Donald Trump’s hardline policies.

Cuban-born Alejandro Mayorkas, confirmed on a modestly bipartisan vote, becomes the first Latino and the first immigrant to head up DHS.

His approval gives the expansive agency its first permanent leadership in nearly two years, and came ahead of Biden’s signing of three executive orders aimed at streamlining immigration, including an effort to reunite children separated from their parents at the border with Mexico.

They are a follow-up to executive orders that Biden signed on his first day in office as he takes aim at US immigration policy after four years of Trump’s “America First” vision.

“I’m not making new law, I’m eliminating bad policy,” Biden said as he signed the orders.

The latest measures do not address the status of some 11 million undocumented immigrants living in legal limbo, which hinges on whether Biden can persuade enough congressional Republicans to back a bill offering them a path to citizenship.