Biden Issues Order to Reunite Children With Their Families

Published February 3rd, 2021 - 07:22 GMT

President Joe Biden pays his respects to U.S. Capitol officer Brian D. Sicknick as he lies in honor in the U.S. Capitol on February 2, 2021 in Washington, DC. Officer Sicknick died as a result of injuries he sustained during the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. He will lie in honor until February 3 and then be buried at Arlington National Cemetery. Erin Schaff-Pool/Getty Images/AFP

Highlights

'We're going to work to undo the moral and national shame of the previous administration,' says US president

US President Joe Biden signed three executive orders Tuesday in the latest such tranche of actions aimed at rolling back his predecessor's legacy, this time with the focus squarely on immigration.

Biden's orders take a multi-pronged approach to the policy, including creating an interagency task force tasked with reuniting children forcibly separated from their parents by former US President Donald Trump, initiating a sweeping review of the root causes of immigration to the US as well as Trump's efforts to deter asylum claims.

US President Joe Biden has prioritized creating a special task force to reunify migrant families as part of his sweeping redo of predecessor Donald Trump's immigration policies, which focused on deterring migration from Central America https://t.co/k0z4sCk2lW
— AFP News Agency (@AFP) February 2, 2021

Over 600 children separated at the border from their parents under Trump's "zero tolerance" policies have yet to be reunited, according to multiple reports.

Trump took a hardline approach to immigration during his four-year term in office, working to curtail both its legal and illegal forms.

With Tuesday's orders, the number of executive actions Biden has taken on immigration has risen to nine.

Biden continued to maintain that Trump issued executive orders that were “very counterproductive to our security, counterproductive to our country" as he signed the orders at the White House, saying his efforts seek to “re-establish our reputation as being a haven for people in need.”

US Pres. Biden has signed three executive orders that take aim at his predecessor's hardline immigration policies and try to rectify their consequences, including by establishing a task force designed to reunite families separated at the US-Mexico border https://t.co/3wO5RtOwAy
— CNN International (@cnni) February 2, 2021

“We're going to work to undo the moral and national shame of the previous administration,” Biden said, adding they literally ripped “children from the arms of their families.”

This article has been adapted from its original source.