This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Tuesday, January 19th, 2021. I'm Caleb Brown.

The Biden administration appears serious about expanding legal immigration.

Alex Narasta directs immigration studies at the Cato Institute.

He details what we know about the plan, which includes a legalization for many millions

of immigrants currently in the US illegally

and a potential path to citizenship.

It was at least a little surprising to me, given what you told me,

Alex, what your colleague David Beer has told me that immigration didn't really

necessarily shape up to be one of those issues that was going to be front and center for the

Biden administration but he has made an announcement some reporters have seen

the relevant documents so what is he planning to do with immigration early in his

administration according to the reports we've seen the Biden administration is

planning on submitting a comprehensive immigration reform bill to Congress in its first or second day in office.

This is a bill that would increase border security,

legalize almost all illegal immigrants

in the United States currently,

and expand lawful immigration in some categories.

Some of the details of this plan are obviously sketchy. The last

immigration reform bill introduced in 2013 was over a thousand pages. So the

devil is certainly in the details when it comes to this and we are just going off

summaries by reporters but it seems like a fairly ambitious plan and sort of

definitely more in a pro-immigration direction than the 2013 bill.

...