Tip Sheets
With executive order, Trump advances restrictive policies for immigrants, refugees
April 21, 2020
Media Contact
On Monday, President Trump said in a tweet that he would sign an executive order temporarily suspending immigration to the United States in the midst of the coronavirus outbreak. The executive order is anticipated to include halting new green cards and work visas.
Maria Cristina Garcia
Howard A. Newman Professor of American Studies
Maria Cristina Garcia is a professor of History and Latino Studies at Cornell University, and studies migration and refugees, including authoring the book “The Refugee Challenge in Post-Cold War America”.
Garcia says:
“COVID-19 has given the administration the perfect pretext to further reduce immigration to the United States. Long before COVID-19, the administration was on a mission to change the demographics of the United States: it reduced refugee admissions to embarrassingly low levels, expelled asylum seekers in violation of international norms and agreements, and made it increasingly impossible to secure an immigration visa or even permanent residency.
“Meanwhile, the administration has no qualms about exporting COVID-19 to other countries, as we saw in the revelation that 73 deportees on a recent flight to Guatemala were infected. The detention facilities in which immigrant detainees are held are virus incubators but there’s no sign the administration is doing anything about it except to expel the sick.”
