The United States (US) president, Joe Biden, few hours after his inauguration, signed an executive order to repeal the travel ban on citizens from Nigeria, Eritrea, Yemen, Sudan and others.
The travel ban was initiated by his predecessor, Donald Trump, while in office.
Biden also repealed a 2017 travel ban on people from several predominantly Muslim countries.
Out of the 17 executive orders, memorandums and proclamations revealed on Wednesday, six dealt with immigration — mostly an attempt to undo some controversial Trump-era policies.
Biden had referred to the policy as discriminatory.
The move to repeal the ban according to DW has been hailed by several civil rights organization, including the American Civil Liberties Union, which called the policy a “cruel Muslim ban that targeted Africans”.
Biden has also ordered that the construction of a border wall near Mexico be halted, a move that was welcomed by the neighbouring country. The wall was one of Trump’s pet projects during his 2016 presidential campaign. Other major immigration orders passed by the incoming president include reversing plans to exclude people who are in the country illegally from the 2020 census and preserving Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA).
The DACA program has shielded hundreds of thousands of people who came to the country as children from deportation.
However, the most ambitious immigration reform to be undertaken by Biden will be a bill that gives legal status and provides a path to citizenship to anyone in the country before January 1.
It comes to an estimated 11 million people.
The bill also aims to reduce the time that family members must wait outside the U.S for green cards.
