A Friday proclamation from President Joe Biden effectively revoked a Trump-era order that aimed to deny visas to immigrants deemed to be a burden financially on the United States health care system.
“The suspension of entry imposed in Proclamation 9945 of October 4, 2019 (Suspension of Entry of Immigrants Who Will Financially Burden the United States Healthcare System, in Order To Protect the Availability of Healthcare Benefits for Americans), does not advance the interests of the United States,” a White House proclamation announcing Biden’s executive action stated.
“My administration is committed to expanding access to quality, affordable healthcare,” Biden said in the proclamation.
“We can achieve that objective, however, without barring the entry of noncitizens who seek to immigrate lawfully to this country but who lack significant financial means or have not purchased health insurance coverage from a restrictive list of qualifying plans.”
Biden thus said he was revoking Proclamation 9945, which Trump issued in October 2019 to ensure that the country does not take in immigrants who could not prove they had health insurance or demonstrate that they could pay for their medical expenses should they became legal green-card holders, according to the Washington Examiner.
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Biden’s action comes as the United States faces an ongoing crisis at the southern border, with an unprecedented influx of illegal immigrants seeking to enter the country unlawfully.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection reported that were 178,622 encounters between migrants and border agents in April, the highest such number in a month in 20 years.
Amid the surge of illegal immigrants, human traffickers have taken advantage of the crisis, smuggling children and families into the United States and making as much as $14 million a day in February, according to Fox News.
Yet, the Biden administration has downplayed the crisis on multiple occasions.
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Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador criticized Biden earlier during the crisis, suggesting the “expectations” Biden set made migrants think they would be allowed into the U.S. after unlawfully infiltrating the country.
On top of the ongoing border crisis, the United States, under its current policies, is on track to double its debt burden over the coming 30 years from roughly 102 percent of gross domestic product by the end of the year to 202 percent by 2051, putting the nation at risk of fiscal crises, according to a March report from the Congressional Budget Office.
The report stated that as COVID-19-related spending will fall in the “near term,” the “net spending for interest” on the national debt is projected to “more than [triple] relative to the size of the economy” in the last two decades of the first half of the 21st century.
The report predicted that the deficit would remain high by historical standards in upcoming years.
According to a March news release from Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, in Texas alone, taxpayers pay over $850 million of their hard-earned money each year for expenses incurred by illegal immigration.
On Wednesday, a Texas Democratic mayor, Bruno Lozano of border town Del Rio, came out against the Biden-Harris administration’s claims that the border situation was under control.
“The way that it’s been handling or being managed, it seems to be wide open for unlawful entry into the United States,” he said.
The exact impact Biden’s recent policies, combined with the massive surge of illegal immigrants still pouring into the country, will have still remains unclear.
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