On the first day of his presidency, Joe Biden signed a stack of executive orders reversing many of Donald Trump’s most controversial and cruel initiatives, including lifting a travel ban on people from several majority Muslim nations, immediately stopping work on Trump’s border wall with Mexico, and imposing a 100-day moratorium on deportations “for certain non-citizens.” Biden also issued orders to protect and strengthen the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, known as DACA.

Biden followed through on his campaign pledge to quickly propose comprehensive immigration reform legislation. Although specific details of the bill are not yet fully known, the U.S. Citizenship Act of 2021, as it’s known, is expected to provide expedited pathways to citizenship for DACA recipients and farm workers, enable 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the U.S. to become eligible for a green card within five years and citizenship in eight years, utilize smart technology to enhance border security and address the root causes of migration, primarily in Central America.

Between The Lines’ Scott Harris spoke with Thomas Saenz, president and general counsel with the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, or MALDEF. Here he assesses Biden’s immigration reform proposals and the obstacles ahead in the coming national and congressional debate on reform legislation.

THOMAS SAENZ: Well, I think that he’s gotten many, many things right from what we know so far. We are all still waiting to see the bill language. But, as it has been described by the administration, it takes important steps to reverse legislatively, many of the ongoing depredations of rights that commenced or were worsened under Donald Trump while also taking steps to address much longer term concerns about our immigration system.

With respect to the latter, the most important step in the proposal would be to provide a pathway to citizenship for so many of the millions of Americans who are here in an undocumented status and have been here for many years contributing to our economy, to our society’s development. And I have to say, during the pandemic — so many of them on the front lines, whether that’s in healthcare or in agriculture or food service — so many of these immigrants awaiting a legislated pathway to citizenship have really in the course of the last year proven how committed they are to the United States, to their families, and to the communities where they live. So that step of providing a pathway to citizenship with different pathways for different groups of folks is really critical. But also critical are some of the steps that it would take to ensure greater due process — whether in our asylum refugee system, whether in reversing as he has already done administratively, the Muslim ban, whether in ensuring that we are true to our principles as a nation in how we operate our immigration system.

SCOTT HARRIS: When it comes to passage of substantive immigration reform in Congress, we have a Republican party that stood with Donald Trump over these past four years and has certainly staked out an anti-immigrant and I would say xenophobic position on immigration. It seems like it’ll be a very difficult task to pull in these representatives in the House and senators to jump on board the immigration reform legislation that will be voted on down the line. What are some of your thoughts about how this could go forward? Should the Democrats pull the plug on the filibuster in order to pass meaningful legislation, not just on immigration, but healthcare, a $15 minimum wage and a whole set of other pieces of legislation that will be blocked certainly by filibusters?

THOMAS SAENZ: Well, I will start by saying that the filibuster has a history that is not a great one. It’s genesis, its practice over the years has not been what it is too often portrayed as some protection for minority rights. So I think there’s room for serious discussion about whether the filibuster should continue.

But filibuster or no, it’s quite clear that we need to return to immigration reform being a bipartisan issue. And prior to 15 years ago, that was the case. Certainly President George Bush was a champion of immigration reform. There were Senate leaders, John McCain and others who were leaders on immigration reform. And this came out of a recognition that our economy, including Big Business would benefit from immigration reform that includes pathways to citizenship for the millions of immigrants who have been here contributing to our economy.

That, under Donald Trump — and even before — was eliminated, restricted by this rhetoric that is designed to frankly, appeal to a thin slice of the electorate that feels threatened by the browning of America that feels threatened by change. And that change was given a face by Donald Trump. And it was the face of a Latino immigrant. Frankly, a Mexican immigrant. So we need to arrive at a change from that politics. That is possible if the leadership of the Republican party would pay attention to the polling that said Americans as a whole, whole-heartedly support reform that includes pathways to citizenship. I also believe that a super-majority of our country would support other elements of reform, if they were honestly and fairly informed about what our current system is and what it might look like if it were to be the subject of reform. Unfortunately, as you know, we have elements of the media that do not engage in that kind of fair and accurate depiction, particularly of our immigration system.

For more information visit the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund at maldef.org.