MANY IMMIGRATION activists would have cheered President Joe Biden had he merely spent his first month in office signing nine executive actions that reverse some of Donald Trump's most hostile orders on migration. Mr Biden has told officials they may no longer take children from the arms of asylum-seeking parents. A task-force has been told to find the still-missing parents of 600 such detained children. Rules on deportation are to be milder than before. Refugee resettlement is to expand anew. And those seeking sanctuary at the southern border will be treated more humanely: a few vulnerable ones may again plead from inside America, rather than wait in unsafe camps in Mexico. To the surprise of even some close observers of immigration policy, however, Mr Biden has signalled he wants to go further, quickly. Last month he proposed a comprehensive immigration bill: last week the us Citizenship Act was sent to Congress. If enacted (which is unlikely) it would amount to the biggest shake-up of the migration system in decades . It sets out how an estimated 11m undocumented migrants could win settled, legal status. It would put more resources into immigration courts, encourage inflows of skilled workers and try to tackle instability in Central America in the hope of reducing outflows from there.
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