What policy changes under Biden affected migration flows and border enforcement since 2021?
Executive summary
The Biden administration moved quickly to undo many Trump-era restrictions while also introducing new operational tools and partnerships that reshaped who could enter, who stayed with protections, and how enforcement at the border was conducted; these changes—ranging from halting wall construction and pausing certain removals to expanding Temporary Protected Status (TPS), refugee caps, and alternatives to detention—contributed to both legal pathway increases and complex enforcement responses to record migration encounters [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]. Legal challenges, shifting use of Trump-era measures like “Remain in Mexico,” and expanded regional diplomacy meant policy churn rather than a single coherent approach, and that churn affected migration flows by expanding some lawful admissions while simultaneously enabling large-scale expulsions and operational restrictions that kept many asylum seekers out of U.S. territory [6] [7] [8] [9].
1. Reversals and restorations: undoing Trump restrictions and rebuilding legal channels
In his first months, Biden rescinded high-profile Trump policies—halting border wall construction and revoking travel bans—and issued executive orders to reopen refugee resettlement, raise the FY2021 refugee cap to 62,500, and signal commitment to broader legalization proposals such as the U.S. Citizenship Act of 2021, moves intended to restore legal immigration channels cut during the prior administration [1] [10] [8]. The administration also created a task force to reunite families separated under “zero tolerance,” reflecting both humanitarian priorities and efforts to reverse past enforcement choices [11] [12].
2. The messy saga of MPP, Title 42 and asylum processing
Policy on processing asylum seekers shifted repeatedly: DHS suspended and then terminated the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP or “Remain in Mexico”) in mid-2021, but later operational realities and litigation produced partial revivals and reinstatements that required asylum seekers to remain outside the U.S. while proceedings continued; concurrently, public-health expulsions under Title 42 persisted as a major operational lever affecting who could seek protection on U.S. soil [7] [6] [8]. Those oscillations meant legal protections were expanded in some bureaucratic arenas even as access to them was constrained on the ground [6] [7].
3. Expanding humanitarian protections: refugees, TPS, parole and DED
Biden’s policies markedly expanded temporary humanitarian pathways: refugee admissions caps were raised from the pandemic-era lows, and DHS broadened TPS designations to include countries such as Afghanistan, Ukraine, Venezuela and others, while the administration used parole and Deferred Enforced Departure (DED) selectively—for example for certain Lebanese nationals—giving work authorization and limiting removals for sizable populations [10] [3] [1]. These moves increased lawful stays and work authorizations for many migrants even as they left unresolved the need for durable legislative pathways to permanent status [3] [10].
4. Enforcement mechanics: alternatives to detention, pauses and continued removals
The Biden administration shifted enforcement emphasis toward alternatives to detention (ATD) and case-management tools—enrolling hundreds of thousands in monitoring programs—and briefly paused some removals early in the presidency, yet deportations and targeted removals continued and in some periods approached prior administration levels, illustrating an enforcement posture that was active but reoriented toward certain priorities [5] [2] [4]. The massive expansion of ATDs changed the operational footprint of enforcement, allowing large numbers to be released under supervision rather than detained [5].
5. Regional diplomacy, foreign assistance and “root causes” strategies
To blunt irregular flows, the administration invested in regional efforts: a multi-billion-dollar Root Causes strategy, Safe Mobility Offices (SMOs) in several Latin American countries, and cooperation to accept returns and manage mobility, reflecting an approach that combined external diplomacy and selective lawful pathways to reduce dangerous journeys [12] [9]. These efforts aimed to alter migration drivers and provide alternative legal routes, rather than solely relying on U.S. border enforcement [9] [12].
6. Litigation, politics and narrative: enforcement constrained by courts and Congress
Nearly every major Biden immigration action triggered litigation and state-led lawsuits, and Congress remained largely inactive on sweeping reform; political attacks—portraying the administration as either lax or hostile—shaped public perception and produced reactive measures in the field, including intermittent reinstatements of restrictive practices under legal and operational pressure [4] [9]. That litigation and partisan context limited the administration’s ability to produce a stable, long-term policy equilibrium [4].
7. Net effect on flows: more legal entries, continued expulsions, and operational complexity
The cumulative effect was a bifurcated system: expanded legal admissions (refugees, TPS, parole, restored backlogs) and greater use of case management contrasted with continued mass expulsions and episodic use or reinstatement of restrictive tools that constrained asylum access—producing record-era encounter numbers, complex processing outcomes, and migration flows shaped as much by diplomacy and operations as by formal statutory reform [4] [5] [9] [8]. Available sources document policy activity and operational flux but do not provide a single causal estimate attributing flows solely to any one change; assessment must therefore account for layered policy, litigation, and regional dynamics [4] [9].