Joe Biden has removed the ban introduced by Trump on the issuance of green cards
US president Joe Biden has lifted the moratorium on the green cards, introduced by his predecessor in the last spring because of the pandemic until the end of 2020. On December 31 Trump extended those orders until the end of March. Trump had deemed immigrants a “risk to the U.S. labour market” and blocked their entry to the United States.
Biden stated that that “shutting the door on legal immigrants “does not advance the interests of the United States", as Associated Press informs.
“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. It also harms industries in the United States that utilize talent from around the world," Biden stated.
The moratorium slammed the door on thousands of visa lottery winners who were randomly chosen from a pool of about 14 million applicants to be given green cards that would let them live permanently in the United States.
The president has not said whether there will be any redress for visa lottery winners who lost out because of the pandemic-era policies. But he is calling for the U.S. to increase the number of diversity visas available via the lottery each year from 55,000 to 80,000.
