PHOENIX — Almost 100 days into his presidency, President Joe Biden has fulfilled almost all of his campaign promises centered on the pandemic and climate change, but has fallen short tackling other issues, like immigration.
On his first day in office, Biden sent a comprehensive immigration bill to Congress. The bill included a pathway to citizenship for DACA recipients, also known as Dreamers, Temporary Protective Status beneficiaries, and more of the 11 million undocumented immigrants currently living and working in the U.S.
The House passed two bills on March 18, 2021, The American Dream and Promise Act, mostly known as the Dream Act, and the Farm Workforce Modernization Act, referred to as the Farm Act.
The president also fulfilled his campaign promise to halt the border wall construction, ended some Trump-era policies and attempted to pause deportations, but that was later blocked by a court.
Biden has yet to take action on other pledges, like ending for-profit immigration detention centers and reforming the U.S. asylum system.
The president has also been under attack for not raising the refugee cap set by former President Donald Trump and for his handling on the humanitarian crisis at the border.
As a candidate, Biden promised an overhaul of the immigration system, so hopes were high among the migrant community during his Jan. 20 inauguration.
Having a new president that was welcoming to immigrants, meant there was a possibility of a permanent future without the fear of deportation for Dreamers like Reyna Montoya, who got emotional when Biden took office saying, “It’s a huge sigh of relieve for the undocumented community.”
Since that day, Montoya sad iit’s been a complex of emotions as immigrants and asylum seekers coming to the U.S. continue being deported under Title 42, a policy the Trump administration put in place during the pandemic, that Biden has carried on.
“I think, right now, President Biden has an opportunity of making sure immigration doesn’t become in the back burner and it’s prioritized, as I said. My fate is at stake.”
DACA, or Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, which protects hundreds of thousands of immigrants brought in the U.S. as children from deportation, is facing a legal battle. As Texas, along with a dozen of other states, wants U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen to invalidate the program, instituted in 2012 by then-President Barack Obama.
In 2018, Hanen declined to issue a preliminary injunction on the case, saying Texas and the other states had waited too long to sue. In that ruling, he said he believed DACA was unconstitutional and called on Congress to enact legislation shielding people under the program.
Trump tried to end the program, but separate federal court rulings barred him from doing that and order him to reinstitute admissions.
Both the Dream Act and Farm Act passed the House with bipartisan support. Nine Republicans voted in favor of the Dream Act and another 30 supported the Farm Act.
“What I am the most worried about is that we’re going to continue to think that immigration is too complex and that there is going to be inaction,” Montoya said, who in 2016 founded Aliento, an immigration advocacy group that helps fellow Dreamers.
Montoya proposes Biden should work with Congress and tackles immigration piece by piece, not as a whole.
“We have seen decade after decade, president after president that there hasn’t been a real solution,” Montoya said.