This Thursday, April 29, marks the first 100 days of the Biden Administration, a symbolic way used by allies, opponents, analysts and the press to evaluate what was achieved and hold accountable for what was not.
Like other presidents, Joe Biden made no promises for his first 100 days, but he has accomplished more than most, experts say.
The challenges it faces are particularly critical, even historical, marked by the health emergency of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has claimed the lives of nearly 600,000 people in the United States and devastated the national (and global) economy.
Presidential historians told fact-checking website PolitiFact,
Biden's first 100 days in office have included an above-average number of major accomplishments,
though other of his promises he failed to deliver.
The three biggest developments, experts say, have been the large-scale coronavirus vaccination program, the passage of its $ 1.9 trillion coronavirus and economic aid law, and the reinstatement of the Paris climate accord.
We set out to examine Biden's top promises on immigration, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the economy.
This is what we found:
IMMIGRATION
Send an immigration reform law to Congress
Status: Completed ✅
On November 24, Biden said in an interview that in the first days of his administration, he would send Congress an immigration reform bill, "with a path to citizenship for more than 11 million undocumented immigrants in the United States." Biden did so and sent his bill the day he took office. It offers an 8-year path to citizenship for the majority of the undocumented. On February 18, Democrats in Congress officially presented it for discussion.
But the plan is stalled in the legislature for lack of support, although the House of Representatives approved two bills in March that seek to grant a path to citizenship to dreamers, beneficiaries of TPS ) and agricultural workers.
These bills, which are likely to face Republican opposition in the Senate, are the first Democratic steps to advance Biden's immigration reform.
Review deportation criteria
Status: Completed ✅
Biden had promised to return to the criteria established by former President Barack Obama, of deporting foreigners who are considered a threat to national security or who have committed crimes other than illegal entry into the country.
On January 20, Biden issued an executive order repealing a Trump order that had expanded the criteria for deporting immigrants.
The new guidance issued by the Acting Secretary of Homeland Security ordered immigration agents to focus on deporting immigrants who pose a risk to national security, border security or public safety.
Who is protected by the order suspending deportations signed by Joe Biden?
Jan. 22, 202103: 10
Stop deportations in the first 100 days
Status:
Not met ❌
On September 15, 2020, then-candidate Joe Biden told Noticias Telemundo that there would be no deportations in the first 100 days of his government.
"The only people who will be deported are those who committed a crime while they were here," he said.
Biden first made that promise public in February 2020, during a forum in Las Vegas.
"No one is going to be deported in my first 100 days."
But he failed to fulfill it.
A day after Biden took office, the Department of Homeland Security announced a pause in deportations, except for those who committed serious crimes, terrorism suspects and immigrants who arrived in the country after November 1, 2020, something that the then candidate did not explain during the campaign.
The moratorium on deportations was blocked by a federal judge days after it was announced.
And although the deportation priorities did change - deportations fell by half between January and February - the truth is that the Biden Administration continues to deport immigrants: between February 13 and March 27, 5,032 people were deported, according to federal data.
Noticias Telemundo requested a comment from the White House but has not received a response as of the publication date.
"I had left her for 2 years": migrant children are reunited with their families in the United States.
April 5, 202102: 40
Strengthen DACA
Status: Not met ❌
On his first day in office, Biden signed a proclamation asking the director of the Department of Homeland Security to "preserve and fortify" DACA, or Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, which he has protected from deportation of hundreds of thousands of people who came to the country as children illegally.
In 2017, former President Trump ordered that this protection be ended, but after a series of lawsuits, the Supreme Court ruled that it should be maintained because the Trump administration did not carry out the correct procedures to dismantle it.
In his order, Biden asks Congress to pass laws that give a path to citizenship for the roughly 700,000 beneficiaries who remain in immigration limbo.
"Dreams Without Borders," a message in support of DACA recipients in November 2019 The Washington Post via Getty Im
Stop the construction of the border wall
Status: Completed ✅
On the first day of government, Biden removed the declaration of national emergency at the border that Trump issued in February 2018, to divert billions of dollars from the Department of Defense to build a wall with Mexico.
Biden also halted construction to review contracts and how money for the wall could be redirected.
The 60-day deadline for that review was met a month ago, to no avail.
A spokesperson for the White House Office of Management and Budget told NBC News that the review has been delayed because there is much to be resolved.
"Federal agencies continue to develop a plan to present it to the president soon," the spokesperson said.
Despite repeated promises from Trump that Mexico would pay for the wall, Customs and Border Protection says it has been Americans who have paid about $ 15 billion for some 700 miles (1,120 kilometers) of wall.
It is unclear how many miles are already under contract and whether the government must pay penalties for canceling them.
Reuniting separated families at the border
Status: Not met ❌
One of Biden's commitments for the first 100 days of his presidency was to reunify immigrant children who are not yet with their families, who were separated from their parents at the border with Mexico under the zero tolerance policy established by Donald Trump in 2017. To date, although it has taken steps to do so, none of the families have been reunited, as reported by NBC News.
In February, Biden signed an executive order establishing an interagency task force to help reunify these families.
This team has identified 5,600 files from the first half of 2017, which need to be reviewed and could contain evidence of additional family separations during the Trump Administration.
In a call with reporters earlier this month, a senior official with the Department of Homeland Security said the task force's first task is to understand the "full scope" of the policy's effects.
A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security told NBC News that the team is "actively working on settlement negotiations with the ACLU (Civil Liberties Union of the United States) and is simultaneously working to process the identified families so that we can reunite them. as quickly as possible ... They are dedicated to finding all the families and giving them a chance to come together and heal. "
A migrant from Guatemala with a child arrives in the United States after crossing the Rio Grande on a raft piloted by coyotes on March 30, 2021, in Rome, Texas. Joe Raedle / Getty Images
Eliminate the public charge rule
Status: Completed ✅
In March, Biden buried the public charge rule introduced by Trump, which limited the granting of visas and
green cards
to certain immigrants who applied for public aid.
The Biden Administration stopped defending this rule before the Supreme Court, which was blocked by a federal judge in Chicago in November 2020. The decision to abandon its defense in court, practically terminates this measure.
Eliminate prolonged detention of immigrant children
Status: Not met ❌
Although the Biden Administration has tried to accelerate the release of immigrant children - in February the federal government authorized shelter operators to pay for the transportation of children to take them with their families in the United States - the task has been complicated by the increase in arrivals. of minors to the border in the first months of the Biden Administration.
In March it was reported that hundreds of children were still being detained for more than 10 days in federal facilities, when the maximum detention time by law is 72 hours.
A DHS spokesperson said ICE "has made operational changes to focus on expedited processing of families" that allows many to be released after receiving the COVID-19 test.
But a senior ICE official told NBC News that the Administration will continue to use family detention centers "as a tool for the longer term."
President Biden Sends Message of Support to DACA Recipients: "Dreamers Are Americans"
Jan. 25, 202102: 06
CORONAVIRUS
100 million vaccines in 100 days
Status: Completed ✅
The Biden Administration delivered on this promise so successfully that by March 19, 100 million people had received a first dose of one of the three available coronavirus vaccines.
Biden then raised the threshold to a more ambitious goal: 200 million vaccines by April 29, which he surpassed eight days earlier, on April 21.
Make the mask mandatory on federal property
Status: Completed ✅
On January 20, Biden issued an executive order requiring social distancing to be observed and face masks to be worn on federal buildings and lands, on interstate travel (by plane, bus or train), and for government employees and contractors.
Reincorporating the US into the World Health Organization (WHO)
Status: Completed ✅
On January 20, Biden sent a letter to the United Nations Secretary General, António Guterres, backtracking on Trump's withdrawal from the health agency.
"WHO plays a crucial role in the global fight against the deadly COVID-19 pandemic, as well as myriad other threats to global health and health security," Biden wrote.
"The United States will continue to be a full participant and a world leader in confronting such threats, and advancing global health and health security."
Biden also tasked Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's top epidemiologist, with leading the US delegation that participated in the annual WHO meetings earlier this year.
President Joe Biden speaks at the White House on April 14, 2021 in Washington, D.C. Andrew Harnik-Pool / Getty Images
Open 100 mass vaccination centers
Status: Completed ✅
In a February 26 news release, the White House noted that the Administration had helped "establish or expand 441 community vaccination centers nationwide" in its first month, by providing personnel, funds or equipment.
In late March, the Biden Administration announced that by April 19 it would open another dozen mass vaccination sites across the country.
One such mass vaccination site operates at the Jacob Javits Center in New York City, which came into operation 24 hours a day in early March.
As of the middle of that month, more than 180,000 doses had been applied in this complex, which is usually used as a convention center.
Reopen most schools for in-person learning
Status: Not met ❌
On February 12, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a guide for students to return to classrooms.
Biden had signed an executive order on January 20 calling for this guidance and measures to help them overcome the pandemic.
At the end of February, he again promised a safe reopening (which includes vaccinating teachers), closing the focus further: reopening schools from kindergarten to eighth grade, since for secondary schools, which are attended by adolescents, the risk of contagion is higher. higher than for young children, so reopening is more complex and requires more thorough measures.
In late March, the multibillion-dollar COVID-19 relief package that Biden supported also included funding to reopen schools, about $ 81 billion.
Almost
half of the elementary schools in the country already teach face-to-face classes,
but the percentages vary according to the place and the predominant race or ethnicity of their students, harming blacks and Latinos, according to a survey carried out by the Administration itself.
In total,
about 76% of primary and secondary schools were open to offer face-to-face classes or in a hybrid model
, also with online classes, while 24% offered only remote learning.
Deploy mobile vaccination clinics
Status: Not met ❌
Biden promised to implement mobile clinics that partner with local community health centers to offer vaccines to the most affected and hard-to-reach communities, such as Latinas.
[From car to car and door to door to vaccinate the most vulnerable against COVID-19]
The first mobile vaccination clinics opened in California in mid-February and FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) has disbursed funds to establish mobile clinics in other states.
ECONOMY
Raise taxes for those who earn more than $ 400,000
Status: Not met❌
Biden has said that "anyone making more than $ 400,000 will see a small to significant tax increase," but, to date, he has not proposed any specific action to make this a reality.
Biden's infrastructure plan does not contemplate an individual tax increase, it only targets corporations.
However, the White House announced on March 31 that the president will present "additional ideas" in the coming weeks to ensure that "the highest income earners pay their fair share."
A person walks past the G&D Military Surplus, Inc. Army & Navy store in Patchogue, New York, November 2020 during the coronavirus pandemic. Steve Pfost / Newsday RM via Getty Images
Extending a break for student loan payments
Status: Completed ✅
On January 20, Biden asked the Department of Education to extend the pause on federal student loan payments and collections and keep the interest rate at 0%.
Reverse Trump's corporate tax cut
Status: Not met ❌
On September 20, 2020, Biden told CNN that he would "make changes to corporate taxes on day one," explaining that he planned to increase the tax burden on large companies from 21% to 28%. In 2017, Trump and Republicans in Congress had lowered the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21%.
Biden did not make the promised changes "on the first day" of government.
On Wednesday, March 31, he announced his proposal to raise corporate taxes to 28% to pay for his $ 2 trillion infrastructure spending plan.
The plan, however, must first overcome the barrier of Republicans in Congress, who do not support the tax increase.
Sources:
NBC News
, CNN,
AP
.
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