Biden reverses Trump’s green card ban News
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Biden reverses Trump’s green card ban

US President Joe Biden on Wednesday reversed a temporary ban on green cards imposed by former president Donald Trump.

Trump issued Proclamation 10014 last April, in which he temporarily suspended the issuance of green cards in order to protect American workers during the COVID-19 pandemic. He stated that this proclamation would preserve jobs for the 26 million Americans who filed for unemployment during that point in the pandemic. This proclamation was initially supposed to last 60 days but was extended through a series of subsequent proclamations. Biden took action to reverse Proclamations 10014, 10052 and 10131, stating that such actions were harming America.

Biden said:

The suspension of entry imposed in Proclamation 10014 of April 22, 2020, as extended by section 1 of Proclamation 10052 of June 22, 2020, and section 1 of Proclamation 10131 of December 31, 2020, does not advance the interests of the United States. To the contrary, it harms the United States, including by preventing certain family members of United States citizens and lawful permanent residents from joining their families here. It also harms industries in the United States that utilize talent from around the world. And it harms individuals who were selected to receive the opportunity to apply for, and those who have likewise received, immigrant visas through the Fiscal Year 2020 Visa Lottery.

This reversal of the Trump-era policy is among many Biden has issued since taking office.

THIS DAY @ LAW

Thomas Becket, former Chancellor of England, murdered by Henry II's knights

On December 29, 1170, Archbishop Thomas Becket, former Chancellor of England, was murdered in Canterbury Cathedral by knights acting in the name of Henry II.

Becket and Henry had been entangled in a power struggle over, among other things, criminal jurisdiction over clergy. Read a contemporary account of the murder of Thomas Becket.

Texas attains US statehood

On December 29, 1845, Texas became the twenty-eighth state to join the United States of America when US President James K. Polk signed the Ordinance of Annexation. Texas had a complicated path to statehood because it had formerly been part of Mexico and then an independent republic. The US Congress passed the Annexation of the Republic of Texas Joint Resolution on March 1, 1845. Voters in Texas then approved the Ordinance of Annexation in October, before it was approved by the US Congress and signed into law by President Polk on this day in 1845. The US Supreme Court later ruled in Texas v. White that, despite its unique path to statehood, Texas did not have the right to secede from the union.