Joe Biden Restarts Immigration to U.S. from Countries Exporting Terrorism

In the first few hours of taking office, President Joe Biden restarted immigration to the United States from countries that are known by the State Department to harbor and export terrorism.

After being sworn in, Biden signed an executive order Wednesday that revokes President Trump’s constitutional travel ban from 2017 that barred nearly all immigration from Iran, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Venezuela, North Korea, Nigeria, Myanmar, Eritrea, Sudan, Tanzania, and Kyrgyzstan.

Trump’s order, ruled constitutional in a 5-4 U.S. Supreme Court decision, included countries that either do not share critical national security data or have been found to harbor and sponsor terrorists. The State Department, for example, designates North Korea, Iran, Sudan, and Syria as “state sponsors of terrorism.”

Biden’s order ends the travel ban, allowing foreign nationals from the 13 countries to again begin immigrating to the U.S. The order also instructs the State Department to start issuing visas to nationals from those countries.

The business lobby as well as the Islamic lobby praised Biden’s ending of the travel ban.

“Ending this arbitrary policy affirms our nation’s values and our commitment to due process in U.S. immigration policy welcoming all peoples to America,” U.S. Chamber of Commerce officials said in a statement.

“We commend President Biden for immediately moving to repeal the Muslim and African Bans, which is an important first step toward undoing the anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant policies of the previous administration,” officials with the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) wrote in a statement.

In addition, Biden signed an order to return to lax Obama era interior immigration enforcement, a practice that was ended for four years under Trump. The result will be that millions of illegal aliens who are not considered a priority for deportation will be increasingly likely not to be deported by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency.

John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.