Immigration activists are gearing up for a fight to push President-elect Joe Biden to do more to counter the measures taken by President Trump that made life more uncomfortable for the 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the United States.
But they may find they get less than they hope for from the Biden administration, which finds itself having to balance the demands of activists with the inherent limits on executive powers.
Biden pledged during his campaign to use those powers to reverse many of Trump's most controversial actions. Biden's plan includes a 100-day moratorium on deportations, restoring protections for young immigrants brought to the country illegally as children and eliminating Trump's restrictions on asylum-seekers.
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But some immigrant rights groups, like the Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services, Movimiento Cosecha and United We Dream, want more.
"We need advocates and people who wake up every day thinking about how they're going to fix the system so that people like myself and people like my family and others who are seeking refuge here have the ability to have a better life," said Erika Andiola, an immigrant rights activist and advocacy director for RAICES.
Recognizing that the political divide in Congress makes a major overhaul of the immigration system unlikely, the groups are pushing for Biden to use the power of his pen to take steps sooner rather than later.
Their requests include returning undocumented immigrants wrongfully deported under Trump, stopping detention of asylum-seekers, expanding the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program and using other executive powers, like granting temporary protected status, to protect more undocumented immigrants.