Biden Revokes Trump Visa Ban

US President Joe Biden on Wednesday revoked a proclamation from his predecessor that blocked many green card applicants from entering the United States, a Reuters report said.

Former President Donald Trump issued the ban last year, saying it was needed to protect US workers amid high unemployment due to the coronavirus pandemic, the report said.

According to Reuters, Biden rejected that reasoning in a proclamation on Wednesday rescinding the visa ban. The Democratic president said it had prevented families from reuniting in the United States and harmed US businesses.

“It also harms industries in the United States that utilize talent from around the world,” Biden said.

“And it harms individuals who were selected to receive the opportunity to apply for, and those who have likewise received, immigrant visas through the Fiscal Year 2020 Diversity Visa Lottery,” Biden said in a proclamation on Wednesday.

Biden, a Democrat, has pledged to reverse many of Trump’s hardline immigration policies. Immigrant advocates had pressed in recent weeks for him to lift the visa ban, which was set to expire on March 31, the report said.

Biden left in place another ban on most foreign temporary workers.

In October, a federal judge in California blocked Trump’s ban on those foreign guest workers as it affected hundreds of thousands of US businesses that fought the policy in court.

Curtis Morrison, a California-based immigration attorney, who represents people subject to the ban said Biden will now have to tackle a growing backlog of applications that have been held up for months as the pandemic shut down most visa processing by the State Department. The process could potentially take years, he said, Reuters reported.

“It’s a backlog that Trump created,” Morrison said. “He broke the immigration system.”

The State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment, Reuters report said.