Cortez Masto slams Trump immigration policies, and Biden’s too

Nevada Democratic U.S. Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto this week called President Trump’s immigration policies “extreme” and “un-American” and said former President Biden “placed too little emphasis on border security.”

“I think I speak for everyone here when I say that we thoroughly understand the failures of the Trump administration’s immigration agenda,” Cortez Masto said during a speech at a Center for American Progress event in Washington, D.C. Wednesday.

“Every day, we’re hearing about masked agents without identification coming into our neighborhoods with the intention of intimidating and attacking immigrants. ICE agents are attacking peaceful protestors and killing American citizens.” 

While Cortez Masto criticized the Trump administration, she said “the Biden administration did not handle immigration policy well either.” 

The Biden administration placed “too much emphasis on supporting the newly arriving asylum seekers,” she said, and overlooked undocumented immigrants who lived in the United States for decades.

Cortez Masto this week reintroduced the Fairness for Immigrant Families Act, which failed to pass in 2021. The bill would eliminate three- and 1o- year immigration bars, which block undocumented immigrants from reentering the United States after they leave or get deported for three or 10 years after residing in the country without legal status.

Cortez Masto said the bill would reestablish the 245 (i) program, which allows undocumented immigrants to adjust their legal status by paying a penalty fee and is only eligible for those who filed for the program on or before April 30, 2001. The bill also promises to protect DACA recipients, parents of U.S. citizen children, and immigrants with pending applications from deportation, and crack down on fraudulent immigration services.

“The legislation pulls down some of the arbitrary barriers in our current immigration laws that keep people undocumented with no way of fixing their status,” she said. “It protects immigrant families from fraud. And it’s been updated to address the new threats we’re seeing under the second Trump administration.” 

Cortez Masto described her proposal as a way for the nation to learn from past mistakes and “offer pragmatic solutions to our country’s broken immigration system.”

But, with a Republican majority in the Senate and Trump still in office, the bill is not likely to pass. 

Cortez Masto did not directly condemn ICE in her comments, but she acknowledged the community fear surrounding the organization, stating detainment based on physical appearance “erodes all Americans’ civil liberties.” 

Cortez Masto also commented on the current administration’s intentional delay of DACA renewals and the fear immigrant families face daily, calling it “horrific” and “unacceptable.” 

Along with the emotional factors, she highlighted the positive economic impact of immigrants. Undocumented immigrants contributed over $37 billion in state and local taxes in 2022, according to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. In Nevada, undocumented immigrants accounted for over $500 million of that amount.