The Department of Homeland Security said it is pausing removals for “certain noncitizens ordered deported” following an executive order signed by President Joe Biden on Wednesday.
The Biden administration says the 100-day moratorium is in place to “ensure we have a fair and effective immigration enforcement system focused on protecting national security, border security and public safety.”
The Department of Homeland Security says that during this 100-day period, it will continue to enforce US immigration laws.
Biden signed several immigration and border-related orders on Wednesday. The orders were among 17 signed in total by Biden on his first day in office.
The Biden administration will immediately terminate the national emergency declaration that allowed Trump to reallocate defense funds to be used to build the border wall. Trump reallocated the funds after Trump struggled to get funding through Congress for one of his top policy goals. The issue of using defense funds was hotly-contested in federal court.
Biden also signed an order to call on Congress to enact legislation providing permanent status and a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants who came to the US as children and remained in the nation since their childhood.
Reversing a Trump directive, Biden called on including undocumented immigrants from the reapportionment count in the census. The reapportionment count is used to divvy congressional seats to states. In previous decennial censuses, undocumented immigrants were included in the count.
“I’m proud of today’s executive actions, and I’m going to start by keeping the promises I made to the American people,” Biden told reporters in the Oval Office on Wednesday. “A long way to go. These are just executive actions. They are important, but we’re going to need legislation for a lot of the things we’re going to do.”
