[ad_1]
(CNN) – On Thursday, US President Donald Trump extended certain restrictions on legal immigration and visas that allow immigrants to work temporarily in the United States. The decision was made just hours before those restrictions expired. Trump extended the restrictions until March 31, two months after he left office.
The continuation of the restrictions, which comes with just 20 days to the end of the president’s term, is the latest effort to ban immigrants from entering the country. Restricting immigration has been a focus of the administration since its early days when it issued the entry ban on people from seven Muslim-majority countries, and it has continued into Trump’s last year in office as the White House uses the pandemic of coronavirus as justification.
In April, Trump signed an immigration proclamation targeting people outside of the United States seeking to legally migrate into the country, with a few exceptions. That order, which was scheduled to expire, was extended in June through the end of 2020 and expanded to include some guest worker visas.
“The effects of COVID-19 on the United States labor market and the health of American communities is an issue of constant national concern,” said Trump’s proclamation on Thursday. “The current number of new daily cases around the world reported by the World Health Organization, for example, is higher than the comparable number present during June, and while there are recently therapies and vaccines available for a growing number of Americans, its effect on the labor market and community health has not yet been fully realized. ‘
Citing the continuing impact of the pandemic on the labor market as the reason for the restrictions contradicts the president’s campaign saying that the United States was “just around the corner” from the pandemic and his ongoing rhetoric that the United States has done. a great job managing the coronavirus, even as the country continues to set new daily records for deaths and hospitalizations.
The message of the proclamation on the economy is also contradictory for the president. In a video posted to his Twitter account Thursday morning, in which the president was touting the growth of the US economy, he bragged about the unemployment rate and said the figure “is heading for a much lower figure.” than the current 6.7%.
As CNN previously reported, one of the key figures behind the push to limit immigration has been Stephen Miller, Trump’s top immigration adviser and the architect of the president’s hardline immigration agenda.
Priscilla Álvarez contributed to this report.
