Reverses visa ban

Biden reverses Trump visa ban on legal immigration

"It harms the United States," Biden said of the ban.

By SABRINA RODRIGUEZ and MARIA CARRASCO

President Joe Biden on Wednesday revoked a Trump-era ban on legal immigration for family members of U.S. citizens and residents, as well as diversity visa lottery recipients.

In a statement, Biden said former President Donald Trump's order blocking green card applicants and temporary foreign workers "does not advance the interests of the United States."

"To the contrary, it harms the United States, including by preventing certain family members of United States citizens and lawful permanent residents from joining their families here," Biden's statement said. "It also harms industries in the United States that utilize talent from around the world. And it harms individuals who were selected to receive the opportunity to apply for, and those who have likewise received, immigrant visas through the Fiscal Year 2020 Diversity Visa Lottery."

The Trump administration had justified the ban as necessary to protect American workers and the U.S. labor market given the coronavirus pandemic.

Business groups, including the technology industry, and immigrant advocates have expressed concern in recent weeks that the Biden administration was not speaking up on any plans to remove the ban, which was put in place in April and then expanded in June.

This proclamation lifts parts of the Trump-era ban, but the ban on work visas remains, though that is set to expire at the end of March. Programs like the diversity visa lottery offers 50,000 visas to people from nations with a low rate of immigration to the U.S.

In a December proclamation, Trump claimed: "The admission of workers within several nonimmigrant visa categories also posed a risk of displacing and disadvantaging United States workers during the economic recovery following the COVID-19 outbreak."