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Consider This from NPR

How President Biden's Immigration Plan Would Undo Trump's Signature Policies

Consider This from NPR

NPR

News, Daily News, Society & Culture, News Commentary

4.26.2K Ratings

🗓️ 21 January 2021

⏱️ 15 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

President Biden followed through on a day-one promise to send a massive immigration reform bill to Congress. Now the hard part: passing that bill into law.

Muzaffar Chishti of New York University's Migration Policy Institute explains the president's plans — and the signal they send to other countries around the world.

Biden is also pursuing big changes in how the U.S. admits refugees. Corine Dehabey, an Ohio-based director of the refugee settlement organization Us Together, says families who've been separated for years are looking forward to reuniting.

Follow more of NPR's immigration coverage from Southwest correspondent John Burnett.

In participating regions, you'll also hear a local news segment that will help you make sense of what's going on in your community.

Email us at considerthis@npr.org.

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Transcript

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0:00.0

For more than four years, Hilda Ramirez has been living in a Presbyterian Church in Austin, Texas.

0:07.0

She's an asylum seeker from Guatemala, and she's been afraid that if she leaves that church,

0:12.0

ICE agents would sweep her up and deport her back to Central America.

0:17.0

Her 14-year-old son, Ivan, has lived a third of his life in that one suburban church.

0:24.0

Joseph Robert Biden, a Udo Solomon mentioned, that I will fail you.

0:32.0

On Wednesday, she watched the presidential inauguration ceremony with tears in her eyes.

0:38.0

Under a massive new immigration plan from President Biden, Hilda could get a green card and a work permit.

0:48.0

Hilda, who watched the ceremony with NPR reporter John Burnett, said she's full of hope.

0:55.0

She's been praying that God send a good U.S. president to retreat immigrants justly.

1:01.0

She wants to walk beyond the church property, and Ivan wants to live like a normal teenager.

1:06.0

Consider this, President Biden has long promised to deliver a massive immigration reform bill to Congress on his first day in office.

1:21.0

On Wednesday, he did that, and immigration reform advocates are celebrating, but making Biden's bill law may be one of his biggest challenges.

1:32.0

From NPR, I'm Audie Cornish. It's Thursday, January 21st.

1:38.0

This message comes from NPR sponsor Comcast. Since 2011, Comcast has connected more than four million students from low-income families to the internet.

1:48.0

Now, they're launching more than 1,000 Wi-Fi-connected lift zones across the country, more at Comcast.com slash education.

1:58.0

President Biden campaigned on uniting the country. He now takes office just weeks after a pro-Trump insurrection.

2:06.0

The Inparapolitics podcast is there every day to break down the transition of power, and Biden takes the reins in Washington.

2:18.0

It's considered this from NPR.

2:21.0

Thank you very much. Thank you, everybody. Great honor to be here.

2:28.0

If there was any doubt that Donald Trump wanted immigration to be remembered as one of his administration's signature issues, he literally signed his name to a section of the border wall a week ago.

2:38.0

We've worked long and hard to get this done. They said it couldn't be done, and we got it done. One of the largest.

2:45.0

It was one of his last trips as president, a ceremony in the Rio Grande Valley to mark the completion of 450 miles of border wall.

...

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