The Democratic Candidates’ Platforms for Immigration Reform: A Primer

Since 2014, the U.S. government has worked closely with partners in Central America to try and address the insecurity, poverty, and unemployment that has produced large migrant flows to the United States from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras. The sudden growth in migrants from this region in 2018 and 2019 led the Trump administration to rely on an enforcement-based strategy when engaging with the Northern Triangle countries. For instance, the Trump administration withdrew $500 million in development aid to El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras in March 2019 to compel these countries to limit migration from the region. The administration and Northern Triangle countries signed security cooperation agreements and Asylum Cooperation Agreements, or ACAs, that allow the United States to return asylum seekers there. After the countries agreed to these deals, Trump released $143 million in frozen development funds in October 2019.

Democratic candidates’ proposals are characterized by two primary approaches that differ from Trump: increasing development aid and increasing security cooperation with the Northern Triangle countries to improve citizen security. Biden’s proposals on Central America are the most comprehensive, as he formulated an entirely separate foreign policy and development agenda dedicated to addressing the root cause of migration from the region. Buttigieg includes a clause to work with regional partners to address the Venezuelan refugee crisis, which none of the other Democratic candidates explicitly mention in their platforms. In addition, while several candidates emphasize the importance of addressing climate change as a driver of migration, Tom Steyer explicitly states that under his administration, individuals fleeing climate-related disasters or conflicts would be automatically eligible for legal entry to the United States.

Trump has rescinded legal protections for certain undocumented populations. After campaigning on the promise that he would rescind the Obama-era DACA program, which provides relief from removal and work authorization to individuals who were brought to the United States illegally as children, Trump terminated the program after a group of Republican state attorneys general threatened to launch litigation to end the program. Immigration advocates subsequently filed a successful series of lawsuits against this decision, leading federal courts to resuscitate the program as these cases moved to the U.S. Supreme Court.¹⁰ The White House has stated it would support a path to citizenship for DREAMers, but only in exchange for increased border security and cuts to legal immigration.

The Trump administration has also rescinded Temporary Protected Status, or TPS, for most of the countries with the largest and longest-resident TPS populations in the United States. TPS allows individuals from certain countries experiencing armed conflicts, environmental disasters, or other extraordinary conditions to remain in the United States with work authorization for a designated period. After the administration rescinded TPS, multiple lawsuits were filed against the Department of Homeland Security, arguing that the rescission violated the constitutional rights of TPS recipients. Several of these cases were successful in obtaining a preliminary injunction, which barred DHS from implementing the TPS terminations. In response to these legal challenges, DHS announced it would extend TPS for migrants from El Salvador, Haiti, Honduras, Nepal, Nicaragua and Sudan. The announcement walked back an earlier decision in January 2018 to strip TPS from Salvadoran immigrants.

Every Democratic candidate has advocated for reinstating DACA, expanding TPS protections, and establishing a roadmap to citizenship for the undocumented population. However, only a few candidates explicitly outline whether they would impose limitations or specific requirements (such as not having a criminal record, or the year an individual arrived in the United States) that would dictate who within the undocumented population would be eligible to apply for legal status. Biden explicitly states that only undocumented individuals who register, are up to date on their taxes, and have passed a background check would be eligible for legalization.¹¹ Sanders promises that undocumented individuals who have low-level contacts with the criminal justice system, such as marijuana possession, would not be automatically prevented from attaining citizenship. However, none of the candidates’ platforms specify a time period in which legal status would be granted, nor do they detail the process an individual would have to go through to obtain legal status.¹²

Trump’s immigration agenda has also attempted to cut back on legal immigration to the United States through executive action. For instance, the administration has introduced the public charge regulation that makes it significantly difficult for lower income migrants to access a green card if the government believes that they will use public benefits in the future. The administration has also significantly tightened the H-1B high skilled visa program, including significantly increasing screenings and denials for applications. Finally, Trump has proposed an immigration plan that would replace nearly all family-based green cards and the entire Diversity Visa program with a points-based permanent immigration system prioritizing individuals with higher skill and education levels. The plan would also require migrants going through this process to show financial self-sufficiency, learn English, and pass a civics exam to gain admission. After the White House faced resistance from congressional Republicans to convert the plan into a bill, White House floated a new version of this reform in early 2020 to restart discussions over changing the immigration.

In contrast, none of the Democratic candidates’ plans have proposed major overhauls of the immigration system. Instead, they would make smaller changes to the existing system, including increasing numbers of permanent and temporary employment-based visas. For instance, Biden and Steyer have called for expanding the number of high-skilled visas; Biden has also proposed eliminating country-based limits on employment-based visas.¹³ However, Biden and Buttigieg’s plans also have measures that would allocate employment visas based on economic conditions or current wage levels, which could potentially decrease the number of non-citizens coming to the United States to work during recessions. Finally, Biden, former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg, and Buttigieg have proposed new visas that would allow states and localities to petition for immigrants to work in their communities.¹⁴  For instance, Buttigieg’s plan, which is based on existing policy proposals for creating a “Heartland Visa,” would allow migrants to access a Community Renewal visa to work in counties that have lost working-age populations over the last 10 years.

As this brief shows, the Democratic presidential candidates’ immigration plans focus on reversing the Trump administration’s policies that it has incorporated into the operation of the immigration system since 2017. Despite these relatively detailed proposals from the Democratic candidates, the prospect of a general election campaign where immigration will play a central role raises questions over whether the eventual Democratic nominee—or Trump—will adjust their immigration approaches to attract voters with different perspectives about this issue. As BPC’s polling about voters’ immigration priorities for the 2020 election found, Democratic and Republican voters are both willing to compromise over issues such as boosting border security funding and providing a pathway to legal permanent status to individuals who came to the United States as children and are not legally residing in the country. These results strongly suggest that an immigration policy with these types of compromises could garner major public support. So far, neither the Democratic candidates nor Trump have based their immigration plans and policies on these types of compromises. This may be a strategy to boost turnout of their base supporters, especially those that hold similar views about immigration as the candidates but will not likely persuade many others to change their existing views.

^{1 Joe Biden released two separate policy plans on December 11, 2019. The first plan “Securing Our Value as a Nation of Immigration” is domestically focused, while the second plan, “Building Security and Prosperity in Partnership with the People of Central America,” is internationally focused.
2 The Trump administration has used this practice to limit the number of asylum seekers allowed into the United States each day at a port of entry along the U.S.-Mexico border.
3 On February 22, 2020, the Biden campaign reversed its position on deportation moratoriums after a Biden adviser had told BuzzFeed News that the characterizing of recent comments from Biden as supporting a moratorium on deportations was inaccurate.
4 As of writing on February 25, 2020, Amy Klobuchar has yet to release a comprehensive immigration platform. The proposals mentioned in her sections throughout this piece are included in a longer list of actions she plans to undertake during her first 100 days in office.
5 The Flores Settlement Agreement, signed on January 28, 1997 during President Bill Clinton’s administration, sets strict national regulations and standards regarding the detention of minors in federal custody. The agreement prevents prolonged detention of children and prevents children from being detained in inhumane conditions. It is the product of the Supreme Court case Reno v. Flores in 1985, involving Jenny Lisette Flores, an unaccompanied minor from El Salvador, was apprehended after attempting to cross the U.S.-Mexico border and was detained in a facility among adults that was daily strip searched.
6 This policy is not formally part of Sanders’ plan. However, he made a public statement calling for these actions in November 2019. On February 20, 2020, Sanders’ campaign manager said that violent criminals would still be deported under his moratorium plan. This statement reversed Sanders’ previous position that he would apply a blanket moratorium on all deportations pending an ICE policy audit.
7 For more background information on decriminalizing border crossings, please see our most recent brief here.
8 This policy is not formally part of Warren’s plan. However, she made a public statement calling for these actions in November 2019.
9 All Democratic candidates have expressed they will raise the United States’ refugee admissions cap upon entering office.
10 The U.S. Supreme Court heard three cases in November 2019 and will publish its decision over whether the administration ended the program properly as early as March 2020.
11 Biden does not specify what the registration process would look like.
12 Should he be elected, Bernie Sanders has stated he would provide administrative relief to individuals eligible for DACA, their parents, TPS individuals, and parents of legal permanent residents. He would also institute a moratorium on deportations. Republicans have criticized this approach as providing immediate amnesty to the undocumented population.
13 The review of the Democrat’s immigration platforms found that Joe Biden and Pete Buttigieg use terms such as “highly-skilled visas” or “employment-based visas” without delineating whether these categories include temporary visas such as the high skilled H-1B visas or employment-based Green Cards.
14 These proposals have an extended history in the immigration policy sphere. Advocacy organizations have promoted state-based visa programs as an important fix to the U.S. Immigration system, frequently citing Canada’s Provincial Nominee Program as a model for this approach. Some states such as Utah have adopted state guest worker programs as formal policies but have not implemented them because the federal government oversees the admissions of non-citizen workers. In response, some members of Congress have introduced legislation that would create pilot programs that would permit states to gain this authority. However, these legislative efforts have not gained traction in Congress.
15 The Conrad 30 visa waiver program allows J-1 medical doctors to apply for a waiver for the 2-year residence requirement upon completion of the J-1 exchange visitor program. The program addresses the shortage of qualified doctors in medically underserved areas.}