Here’s yet another subject that I don’t recall Joe Biden mentioning during the general election campaign. Unlike the 2016 race, the subject of illegal immigration was barely an afterthought in this election. But now that Joe Biden appears poised to become the 46th President, he’s promising to undo even more of the progress achieved by Donald Trump in terms of enforcing the nation’s immigration laws. Not only does he plan to fully restore the Obama-era DREAMER protections, but he will declare a 100-day freeze on all deportations, even for criminal illegal aliens. During that time he will be revising the guidelines for ICE as to which illegals can be deported, rolling back the gains we’ve made on that front over the past four years. (CBS News)

After Mr. Biden is sworn-in in January, his administration will move to fully restore an Obama-era program that shields 640,000 undocumented immigrants who were brought to the U.S. as children from deportation, halting Mr. Trump’s unsuccessful efforts to end it, people familiar with the plans told CBS News. The incoming administration also intends to rescind Mr. Trump’s travel and immigration restrictions on 13 mostly African or predominantly Muslim countries.

Mr. Biden will look to implement a 100-day freeze on deportations while his administration issues guidance narrowing who can be arrested by immigration agents. Obama-era memos that prioritized the deportation of immigrants with criminal convictions, recent border-crossers and those who entered the country illegally more than once were scrapped in 2017 by Mr. Trump so that no unauthorized immigrant would be exempted from being arrested and removed from the country.

This is precisely the sort of pending disaster that immigration hawks were raising the alarm about if the Democrats took back control of the White House. Wrapped up in this package is an end to the travel ban that Donald Trump put in place shortly after taking office. As part of the new “guidelines” for ICE, Biden’s spokesperson said that immigration enforcement officials would be steered away from so-called “collateral arrests.” Those are the incidents where ICE agents locate a higher-priority criminal illegal alien only to find that they are in the company of other illegals who aren’t as high on the list for detention and deportation. Traditionally, these discoveries are considered something of a bonus and they wind up being deported along with the primary target of the enforcement action.

Much like Barack Obama, Biden will apparently use any excuse possible to allow more illegals to remain in the country, even if ICE officials have them in custody. It’s going to be the next version of the catch and release programs that Democrats have favored in the past.

These changes will be coming just as we were making serious progress in the war to control our borders. One of the few actual benefits of the pandemic is that traffic at the southern border has been hovering at historic lows. This has allowed for closer scrutiny of anyone coming across the border, so illegal crossings are down considerably. We’ve also been benefitting from Donald Trump’s negotiations with the government of Mexico, leading to the Remain in Mexico policy, along with that country’s refusal to allow massive caravans of illegals to cross their nation as they had in the past.

But now, with a Biden administration most likely on the horizon, all of those gains will be washed away. The welcome mat will be out once again for people looking to illegally enter the United States and a blind eye will be turned to most of those who are already here. And all of these changes will take place without Congress having any role in the process. This is no way to run a business.