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Thanks to @acslaw for the opportunity to contribute immigration recommendations for @Transition46. Even as @JoeBiden and @KamalaHarris seek to dismantle the Trump legacy, they should also aim higher—as they are in other areas—to "build back better" in the aftermath of Trump. 1/ https://twitter.com/sujathomas3/status/1349876379404394497
Because Trump's immigration policies were instituted almost entirely through executive action, not legislation, @JoeBiden is well-positioned to roll back many of them. But that will require more than detailed technocratic attention to specific policies. 2/ https://www.migrationpolicy.org/research/us-immigration-system-changes-trump-presidency
First, to reverse Trump's policies promptly and as fully as possible, Democrats must relentlessly commit political capital, resources, and personnel. Stephen Miller-like energy—but in the opposite direction. There are tough political and legal fights ahead: lean into them. 3/
Second, @JoeBiden's administration should institute meaningful efforts to ensure accountability for Trump-era wrongdoing and ethical breaches. Culpable individuals must be held accountable. Future officials must be deterred from wrongdoing and flouting the rule of law. 4/
Third, @JoeBiden should directly confront the broader context that has enabled the Trump presidency’s xenophobia. For years, Trump has dehumanized
and incited supporters to scapegoat immigrants—in openly racist terms—while Republican Party allies have acquiesced or joined him. 5/
and incited supporters to scapegoat immigrants—in openly racist terms—while Republican Party allies have acquiesced or joined him. 5/
The new president and other administration officials should forcefully repudiate this toxic discourse and find
creative ways to contribute—on a regular and ongoing basis—to a fundamentally different discourse about immigrants and immigration in the years to come. 6/
creative ways to contribute—on a regular and ongoing basis—to a fundamentally different discourse about immigrants and immigration in the years to come. 6/
But taking Trump out of the equation and rolling back his policies is not enough. @JoeBiden also should seek to effect a more basic paradigm shift—moving away from the punitive regime that has dominated immigration policy for decades and that directly enabled Trump's agenda. 7/
In other areas @JoeBiden has pledged to "build back better"—echoing an approach to post-disaster recovery that emphasizes sustainability, building community resilience, reducing vulnerability to future disasters. 8/ http://klhn.co/SRmAV
Similar principles should guide recovery from Trump's damage to immigration policy. Of course, the most durable means of achieving that paradigm shift is through legislation. Early reports of @JoeBiden's legislative agenda and approach are promising. 9/ https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-01-15/biden-to-send-congress-bill-to-legalize-11-million-immigrants-who-lack-documentation
But even as it pursues legislative reform, the new administration should avoid the flawed notion—as described (and criticized) by @FrankSharry—that taking a "hard stance on enforcement" might "win over ... support for comprehensive immigration reform." 10/ https://drexel.edu/~/media/Files/law/law%20review/spring_2017/269295%20Sharry%20%20DLR%20%2091817.ashx
Under previous administrations, this largely discredited approach not only failed to achieve reform. It also further deepened and consolidated the punitive nature of the existing regime—thereby exacerbating some of the very dysfunctions in need of reform in the first place. 11/
"Building back better" demands serious efforts to break this self-defeating cycle. Wherever possible, the new administration should also build that kind of framework into its interpretation, implementation, and enforcement of existing laws. 12/
While Trump turned every aspect of immigration policy into an occasion for excluding individuals or initiating removal proceedings, immigration policy requires attention to a range of social, economic, and humanitarian objectives that are no less important than enforcement. 13/
Accordingly, @JoeBiden should use the opportunity created by a moratorium on deportations—which he already has pledged—to develop and articulate a different conception of the place of enforcement
in immigration policy more broadly. 14/
in immigration policy more broadly. 14/
Immigration enforcement is civil and administrative in nature—not criminal and punitive—and it also must reflect and embody principles of proportionality, due process, transparency, and accountability. 15/
As such, as @MarkowitzPeter has explained, officials can and should treat enforcement practices as occasions for individuals to come into compliance w/legal requirements, rather than exclusively as occasions for detention, deportation, and punishment. 16/ https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/immigration/reports/2020/11/30/493173/new-paradigm-humane-effective-immigration-enforcement/
DOJ should make sure its statutory interpretation approaches & litigation strategies reconcile and are aligned with the *full* range of values in the immigration laws—rather than interpreting laws in *exclusively* enforcement-maximizing fashion, as previous admins often have. 17/
Finally, @JoeBiden should reclaim and center the rule of law in his immigration agenda. While restrictionists deploy heavy doses of “law and order” rhetoric, the immigration system has long failed to respect rule of law values, as @TomJawetz explains. 18/ https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/immigration/reports/2019/07/22/472378/restoring-rule-law-fair-humane-workable-immigration-system/
Those longstanding failures have worsened under the Trump presidency, which has gutted judicial independence of the immigration courts and whose officials have often defied judicial directives and legal requirements altogether. 19/ https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3646513
In both executive actions and his legislative agenda, @JoeBIden should make clear not only that a modernized immigration system that “builds back better” is consistent with rule of law values, but also that respect for the rule of law depends upon a basic paradigm shift. 20/
Even as restrictionism and xenophobia have been ascendant among conservative political, legal, and judicial elites, polls steadily have found that majorities of Americans oppose the Trump agenda and continue to hold positive views about immigration. 21/ https://www.dataforprogress.org/memos/voters-oppose-trumps-immigration-policies
In fact, public support for immigration has grown even *stronger* during Trump’s presidency—including among Trump’s own supporters. 22/ https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2020/09/10/voters-attitudes-about-race-and-gender-are-even-more-divided-than-in-2016/pp_2020-09-10_voter-attitudes-race-gender_0-10/
With this deep reservoir of public support for a new direction, @JoeBiden and his allies should be neither tentative nor apologetic about seeking to do more than merely to roll back the Trump presidency’s specific policy initiatives. 23/ https://news.gallup.com/poll/313106/americans-not-less-immigration-first-time.aspx
Only with a more basic overhaul of the institutions, practices, and laws that Trump inherited—which enabled his presidency to implement its agenda so readily—can we fully turn the page and minimize the risk of a future president causing similar damage. 24/ https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3768874
