 Joe Biden hasn't been president for very long, but yet, since he's been inaugurated, already almost 300 individuals have been deported under his watch. Now you might ask yourself, why is this happening when his administration immediately halted most deportations for at least 100 days? Well the answer is a Trump-appointed judge decided to throw a wrench in that plan and at least blocked it temporarily for 14 days. So this is complicated, and even though this kind of gets in the way of Joe Biden's agenda, there are things that he could have done to subvert that judge's ruling because it is temporary, and these 300 deportations that have taken place, they were unnecessary. He could have stopped them, so I don't know if this is necessarily due to him being negligent or incompetent, but either way, it's something that he needs to stop if he truly does want to right the wrongs of the Obama era in terms of the way that they treated immigrants. So immediately after Joe Biden was sworn in, the Department of Homeland Security announced that it would halt most deportations of non-citizens, and also they paused Donald Trump's cruel remain in Mexico policy, which basically forced asylum seekers to stay in Mexico while they waited to get a hearing in America. However, days later after this policy was changed, as CVS News reports, a Trump-appointed judge decided to block Biden's moratorium on deportations at least temporarily, and they explained US District Judge Drew Tipton of the Southern District of Texas agreed to pause the policy for at least 14 days while he considered a lawsuit followed by the Texas Republican Attorney General, Ken Paxton, who argued in a complaint on Friday that the deportation freeze violated immigration law and a legal agreement the state brokered with the Trump administration before Mr. Biden took office. The moratorium, one of Mr. Biden's campaign promises, shielded most immigrants facing deportation from being removed from the United States as long as they entered the country before November 1st of 2020. It does not apply to those who pose a national security risk or are suspected of terrorism or espionage. Immigrants could also agree to voluntarily leave the country. On January 8th, Ken Cuccinelli, who was then the second in command at the Department of Homeland Security, signed an agreement committing the Department to consult Texas and consider its views before changing policies governing the enforcement of federal immigration law. DHS signed similar deals with other states and localities but legal experts have questioned whether they are legally enforceable. So basically the ghouls in Trump's administration anticipated that this change would be coming and they put in place a last minute policy that required the federal government to consult with states before implementing any new changes, and this was basically a brazen attempt to stop or at a minimum delay the progress that Joe Biden wanted to make when it comes to deportations. They knew he would be halting deportations for 100 days and they are now making this argument to stop it. Texas is saying, well, you know, since the Department of Homeland Security didn't consult with us or at least give us a forewarning that they'd be making this policy change, looks like it's invalid, it looks like we can still continue to deport people. Now, this is definitely disgusting, it's cynical, this is taking place during a pandemic, you are putting these lives at risk, but there is a way that Joe Biden could have subverted this obstacle. So if all of the deportations that were already scheduled went ahead as planned because of this judge's ruling, all Joe Biden's administration needed to do was simply reschedule these deportations, at least delay them until after we get, you know, a final ruling from the courts until this is litigated, and you could have stopped these 300 people from being deported. But that's not what happened. So as AP reports, a federal judge last week ordered the Biden administration not to enforce a 100-day moratorium on deportations, but the ruling did not require the government to schedule them. In recent days, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has deported immigrants to at least three countries, 15 people to Jamaica on Thursday and 269 people to Guatemala and Honduras on Friday. More deportation flights were scheduled Monday. Two legal experts say that regardless of the judge's order on the deportation moratorium, ICE could release immigrants with deportation orders, keep people detained or otherwise delay the deportation process. Scheduling deportations is still a matter of discretion for the agency, said Steve Yale Lower, an immigration law professor at Cornell University. So even though a Trump appointed judge stopped Joe Biden's moratorium on deportations from going into effect, and even though Trump's administration made last-minute changes to kind of at least delay progress from taking place, anything that Joe Biden wanted to put in place, you know, this was avoidable. Joe Biden could have easily just rescheduled these deportations. So it's deeply frustrating that this was not the case. It is tragic that folks are being deported during a pandemic. And one of the individuals who was deported was actually a witness to murder. So it might have been useful to have a witness to murder remain in the United States while that case was, uh, was litigated. It's just, it's deeply sad. It's deeply sad. I think that this really demonstrates the necessity of immediate comprehensive immigration reform. And we don't just need, like, to put these folks on a path to citizenship. They're paying their taxes, they're living here, their children go to our schools, make them citizens. There's no need to prolong their pain and delay it. They should be given immediate citizenship. So I absolutely blame Joe Biden for this because even though Donald Trump's administration, uh, they did this, this is like the lasting legacy of Trump's ruthlessness. When it comes to immigration, Joe Biden's administration should at least be savvy enough and competent enough to stop anything that they should have anticipated legally. You know, any obstacle that, you know, these Republican governors would have put up, they should have anticipated that and had a plan to respond to them, but they didn't. Now I do have to give Joe Biden credit words to, he did sign executive orders that are good when it comes to the issue of immigration. First of all, he created a task force that aims to reunite separated families. Also, these executive orders give aid to Central American governments in an attempt to address the root causes of immigration. And I actually do think this is a really good start considering the US's role in destabilizing this region in the first place. You know, you need something more comprehensive, but I think this is a really good first step in the right direction. Now finally, his executive orders will review the naturalization process, make it more streamlined, get rid of these draconian rules put in place by the Trump administration that make it more difficult for non-citizens to secure legal status if they've received public assistance. I mean, this is all a really good step in the right direction, but all of this amounts to a piecemeal approach. I really genuinely hope that Joe Biden fulfills his promise of immigration reform. And in the event he does pursue immigration reform, as he promised he would, I hope that it doesn't get watered down, like it's already not strong enough what he's proposing. Like if we're talking about a path to citizenship that lasts for eight years, I mean, you're giving yourself enough time to have a xenophobic administration come in after you and undo the progress that you've made, or at least chip away at the progress you're trying to make. Make these folk citizens, like it's, it's not that difficult. It's the moral thing to do, especially during a pandemic, when we don't need people being deported to countries that they're not familiar with, that they haven't been to in a very long time, especially when they've become a part of American society. So, you know, overall, Joe Biden gets credit for doing some right things when it comes to executive orders. He gets credit for trying to put a moratorium on deportations. However, he doesn't get credit for failing to act and protect these immigrants when, you know, they should have anticipated a right-wing attack on the progress that he was trying to make. So again, I hope that he's actually truly trying to right the wrongs of the Obama era. But if he's going to do this, he has to be more aggressive. You can't just allow these deportations to go on his plan, because with the way that our immigration system works, it's so draconian and ruthless that it kind of almost operates autonomously. So you have to take charge. You have to grab a hold of the steering wheel and like drastically shift it in the opposite direction. If you genuinely are adamant, like, that you want this change. So we'll see. I'll give them time because, you know, that we have to see how this plays out in the courts. But overall, this is sad. Like, there's no excuse for this many folks being deported during a pandemic. None.