Desperation as Joe Biden stalls on rescinding Trump rules keeping visa holders out of US

Hundreds of thousands of US visa applicants and beneficiaries around the world are stuck in limbo as Biden weighs whether to rescind Trump rules keeping them out, writes Chantal Da Silva

Ebru Soytorun and her family (Ebru Soytorun)

When Ebru Soytorun, a Turkish mother of two, first learned that Joe Biden had won the US presidential election back in November, she was awash with relief. Finally, it felt certain: she and her family would be able to pursue their American Dream.

Back in June, Ms Soytorun, a pharmaceutical assistant in Istanbul, and her family of four were among tens of thousands of people to win the 2021 diversity lottery visa – a programme that sees as many as 55,000 green cards awarded to immigrants from countries around the world in a bid to promote diversity in the US.

The 44-year-old had been applying to the programme every year for 20 years after falling in love with America while studying English there as a student in 2001.

She and her husband, an engineer, also made frequent trips to the country and repeatedly sought work opportunities there, with both their children, aged 9 and 11, being born on US soil during months-long trips to America, making them both US citizens.

Building a life in America, Ms Soytorun toldThe Independent, has always been her family’s dream – and had it been any other year, she would have been ecstatic to have finally won the lottery that could turn those hopes into a reality. 

However, in 2020, she said “our good news and good luck was changed ... into a nightmare”.

Ebru Soytorun and her family have been hoping to build a life in the US for years. Both her children are US citizens. (Ebru Soytorun )

Just months before, then-President Donald Trump had signed a proclamation banning certain visa holders from entering the US indefinitely, including diversity visa winners. Under Presidential Proclamation 10014, visa holders perceived as posing a “risk to the US labor market” during the country’s economic recovery from Covid-19 would be barred from entry.

The diversity visa comes with strict time restrictions and if you miss your chance to cash in, you could lose the opportunity to move to the US under the programme completely.

So, uncertain of when Trump might ever consider lifting the rule, Ms Soytorun’s family – and thousands of others affected by the order – put their faith in Joe Biden, the then-Democratic presidential nominee vowing to overturn Trump’s restrictive immigration policies.

‘I was so happy ... but now, I am disappointed’

When November approached and the Trump administration still showed no signs of letting up on the rule, Ms Soytorun and her family prayed for a Biden victory.

“Although there is eight hours of local time difference between Turkey and the USA, we followed the presidential election ... very closely, minute-by-minute, from Istanbul and we prayed for Biden to win,” she said.

When he was finally announced as the winner after a tumultuous week following election day, Ms Soytorun said: “I was so happy ... but now, I am disappointed.”

While Mr Biden has so far made good on most of his promises to begin the work of overturning Trump’s hardline immigration policies, he has yet to act on PP 10014, with government lawyers saying the new administration needs more time to decide on whether to rescind the policy. 

As the Biden administration weighs that decision, however, thousands upon thousands of visa holders, including diversity visa winners and applicants of spousal, family and work visas, have been left in limbo, waiting to find out if their American dreams will ever come to fruition.

Already, at least 1,000 diversity visa winners from 2020 are estimated to have had their visas expire, Charles Kuck, who is representing some of the winners fighting to be granted entry into the US, told The Independent. Meanwhile, as many as 6,000 to 7,000 others are expected to expire in March if President Biden does not take action.

In a statement sent to The Independent, a US State Department spokesperson confirmed that there are at least 473,000 immigrant visa applicants awaiting an interview alone as of this month.

“The increase in that number is due to a variety of factors, including the Covid-19 pandemic,” the spokesperson said, adding that any questions on presidential proclamations specifically, should be referred to the White House. The White House did not respond to a request for comment, but on Tuesday Press Secretary Jen Psaki said during a press conference that she had no update on the situation.

Mr Kuck said he does not buy the State Department’s explanation blaming the pandemic. “How come they’re the only government agency in the whole world who has not found a way to operate during Covid?” he questioned. Noting that many others have been able to fly in to the US over the past year, he questioned how it made sense that so many visa applicants were being kept out.

US immigration attorney Curtis Morrison, who has also been battling with the government on behalf of visa winners, agreed, telling The Independent he was “surprised” to see Mr Biden dither on PP 10014. “He should not be defending Trump’s anti-immigration xenophobic proclamation,” he said.

While the president’s lawyers have not given any indication that he will not overturn the policy in the near or distant future, both Mr Kuck and Mr Morrison stressed that time is running out.

‘It’s over, just move on’

For some diversity visa winners, the clock stopped ticking years ago, with thousands of lottery winners from the years 2017 to 2019 having been blocked from entering the US long before PP 10014 took effect due to a controversial Trump ban affecting Muslim-majority nations also fighting for their cases to be reopened under Mr Biden.

The Biden administration has ordered a review into visas affected by the ban, known by many as the “Muslim ban” but Mr Morrison said he is not particularly hopeful their cases will be revived. “I tell them, ‘it’s over, just move on. There’s no hope’,” he said.

Mr Kuck disagrees, however, asserting that he believes there are a number of routes the Biden administration can take to right a wrong he says was committed by President Trump.

One of his clients, Maged Alawag, a 2017 diversity visa winner from Yemen – one of the countries that was blocked under Trump’s travel ban – says he is optimistic, despite having endured years of uncertainty.

Maged Alawag and his son Obad Alawag pictured in an undated photo. Maged was told his family could not enter the US after winning a 2017 diversity visa because of the Trump administration's travel ban. (Maged Alawag )

“I know it is considered over, but [Biden] has ordered the State Department to review all the visas denied due to the racist Muslim ban,” he said. “I, my wife and son are the victims of that unfair ban.”

When Mr Alawag, a civil engineer with a Masters in project management, his wife, Shawk Salah and their young son, Obad, first learned that they had won the diversity visa lottery, “it was like our dreams came true,” he toldThe Independent.

“I invited 35 of my classmates and my wife invited her friends to our house for a huge party. We thought we would be leaving for America!” he exclaimed.

The family had been living in Malaysia while both parents completed their studies. They had initially planned to move from the country once Mr Alawag finished his Masters degree, but remained in Malaysia for an additional year after learning that their appointment with the US embassy in Kuala Lumpur had been set for September 2018.

“We waited one year in Malaysia for only one purpose: to attend the interview,” Mr Alawag explained, adding: “It cost me a huge amount of money for the whole year.”

Then, when the family’s appointment with the embassy finally came, he said: “They checked all our documents and said all of your documents are very qualified to get the visa, but unfortunately, your country is banned.”

“We waited for a whole year and were simply rejected because [we are] from Yemen,” he said.

Mr Alawag said he and his family have no future left for them in Yemen, particularly after his own farm and home, he said, were destroyed in Saudi-led coalition airstrikes in August 2018.

“We still dream of immigrating to the United States to live in peace and to use our education to work, but we are far from that,” he said. Still, he said: “We believe and trust in the justice of the United States.”

While he still believes that Mr Biden will make good on his vow to undo the damage done by his predecessor in the White House, others increasingly have their doubts, including would-be visa holders in the UK.

‘This is why I voted for Biden’

Mel Chenoweth, a 35-year-old Briton living just outside Belfast, Northern Ireland, is one of them, as she waits to be able to reunite with family living in the US after being blocked from moving to America due to PP 10014.

Almost exactly a year ago, in the weeks before the coronavirus outbreak was declared  a pandemic, she and her younger sister, Lianne, 33, had been celebrating after receiving news that they had been approved for visas to move to America, where their mother has lived with their stepfather, a US citizen, since 2012.

Their mother, Karin, had petitioned for her two daughters to be able to join her in the US soon after she arrived in the country. However, the process for obtaining US visas for children over the age of 21 can take seven years and after waiting that long, Mel and Lianne were anxious to jump on the first flight out to the US as soon as they had their visas in hand.

Only one of the sisters would end up joining their parents in America, however, with Lianne receiving her visa in March, while Mel’s own visa, which had been expected to follow shortly after, was suddenly blocked with the imposition of PP 10014.

“Really, my whole life has been put on hold for nearly eight years,” Mel Chenoweth toldThe Independent. “As a little girl, I’ve always wanted to move to America and live that American Dream … and now it’s become a nightmare and I just don’t know when it’s going to end”.

Mel Chenoweth (left) and her sister Lianne Chenoweth (right) had been waiting years to call the same place home as their mother Karin Chenoweth (centre). (Mel Chenoweth)

As a plaintiff in a case challenging the Trump administration’s visa ban, she is now one of dozens of people technically eligible to receive a US visa. However, she has been told she cannot be issued a visa due to coronavirus travel rules blocking travellers from the UK, Ireland, Schengen zone and other areas. A judge has called for the issue to be resolved, but a resolution has yet to be reached.

None of this would be happening, however, Mel and her family have said, if she had not been blocked from moving to US over fears she might “steal” a US job.

“Suddenly, it went from being, ‘yes, here you go. You’re ready for your [visa] interview’, to ‘actually, we think you’re going to steal jobs’,” her mother weighed in, in a three-way call. “You have family [trying to enter] the United States to be reunited with their loved ones ... and suddenly, you feel as though you’re a second class citizen.” 

Her family, like many others, were certain that as soon as Biden took office, he would recognise PP 10014 as the overtly “xenophobic” order it appeared to be and reverse the proclamation so the thousands of people stuck in limbo under the rule would be able to enter the US. When that did not happen, they began to lose faith.

“This is why I voted for Biden,” Karin Chenoweth said. “I remember him writing on his Facebook page, ‘I can’t believe I’m writing this’ or, ‘I can’t believe that I have to write this, but families should be together’. Well, that is our view and that is our belief too. I believe that families should be together and I thought his immigration policy was very strong, but we’re still not together.”

Mr Morrison said he believes she is touching on a point that the Biden administration appears to have missed: that to countless people – migrants, asylum seekers, refugees, immigration attorneys and advocates – “family separation” due to US immigration policy continues to be a harmful reality.

“But to explain that PP 10014 is separating hundreds of thousands of families … I can’t get reporters to understand that,” Mr Morrison said. “I have spent the last few years fighting for legal immigrants to come into the country that are family-based and to me, that’s family separation.”

With less than a month in office under his belt, Mr Morrison acknowledged that President Biden has already started to make some headway in addressing the damage done under Mr Trump’s hardline immigration approach. However, he said he fears the president may not realise the full weight of the visa backlog Trump has left behind.

“Legal immigration has been broken by the Trump administration,” Mr Morrison said. “And it will take three to four years, Biden’s whole first term, to fix the harm done.”

“He has all these ambitions ... but it’s on life support, right now,” he said.

The longer Biden waits to address the chaos caused by PP 10014, he warned, the more it will grow. the worse the situation is likely to become.

“This backlog looks huge. It’s going to be the biggest problem of his administration after Covid,” Mr Morrison said. “And it’s still accruing. It’s getting worse and it’s kind of like climate change... every day you don’t do something, it gets worse.”