United States President Joe Biden has revoked a proclamation issued under the former president Donald Trump’s administration that blocked many green card applicants from entering the United States,
The White House in a statement on Wednesday said Biden overturned the ban through an executive order.
The order by Trump, known as Presidential Proclamation 100014, cited a need to protect US jobs amid high unemployment rates caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
But the US president said Trump’s measures separated families and “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,” the statement read.
Biden, has pledged to reverse many of Trump’s hardline immigration policies and defend the naturalization process for green-card holders and support family-based immigration.
He also has said he wants to preserve “preferences for diversity in the current system,” because Trump has sought to eliminate what is commonly known as the diversity visa lottery that ensures that the United States draws immigrants from everywhere instead of the small number of countries that are overrepresented in family and employment-based immigrant visas.
On his first day in office Biden, issued an executive order to end Trump’s controversial travel ban on non-citizens from 13 countries.