Last July the Migration Policy Institutedocumented more than 400 changes to America’s immigration system made between President Donald Trump’s inauguration in January 2017 and the middle of 2020, and concluded that Trump “has dramatically transformed the U.S. immigration system, in bold-brush, sweeping ways but also in small technical details across the immigration portfolio… The arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic during Trump’s fourth year in office turbocharged many of these efforts.”
Yet, as destructive as Trump’s efforts have been to block immigration, the president failed to reshape border policy through convincing Congress to pass comprehensive immigration reform. This means that the administration’s many restrictive and punitive actions against émigrés (who include refugees and asylum seekers) made by presidential executive order, directives issued by the attorney general’s office and regulatory changes are subject to swift reversal once Joe Biden occupies t
As COVID-19 vaccine rolls out, undocumented immigrants fear retribution for seeking dose Marco della Cava, Daniel Gonzalez and Rebecca Plevin, USA TODAY
COVID-19 vaccine distribution begins in United States
Replay Video UP NEXT
As the COVID-19 vaccine makes its way throughout the United States, immigration activists and lawmakers are rallying to ensure that the 11 million undocumented immigrants at the heart of the nation s food production and service industry sectors are not left out.
Experts say it is unlikely that health officials will discriminate against undocumented Americans. But after years of isolationist and punitive immigration policies from the Trump administration, many immigrants whose physical and fiscal health has, along with many people of color, been disproportionately impacted by the pandemic might be unwilling to come forward and get vaccinated.