The Associated Press story said that “after immigration to the United States tapered off during the Trump administration — then ground to a near complete halt for 18 months during the coronavirus pandemic — the country is waking up to a labor shortage partly fueled by that slowdown.”
“It’s very difficult to predict what that migration will (look like) but we are planning for different scenarios,” said U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas.
For months, the Biden administration has been publicly hammering an unwelcoming message to those trying to enter the U.S. illegally at the southernmost part of the country: “The border is closed.”
The call to end a U.S. policy that keeps migrants out because of COVID-19 fears has been a constant rallying cry among immigrant advocate circles this summer.
For one of the last visits of his presidency, Trump chose the Rio Grande Valley, the setting of some of his most criticized immigration polices — separation of families and detention of minors — to emerge from public and political isolation following the U.S. Capitol attacks.
The Trump administration reclassified Cuba as a state sponsor of terrorism Jan. 11, 2021, five years after the island nation was removed from that list.
After a flurry of court decisions, the Supreme Court reversed a pair of rulings from federal appeals courts that had put death-row inmate Lisa Montgomery’s execution on hold, and it denied two other last-minute requests to postpone the execution.
A federal judge Dec. 4 said the Trump administration must fully restore the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, after the program that protects qualifying young adult immigrants from deportation was suspended this summer by Chad Wolf, acting Homeland Security secretary.
