During his presidential campaign, former President Biden promised to manage migration at the border in a more humane manner and to reverse many of the repressive and anti-immigrant policies imposed during the first Trump administration. Yet after the number of migrant and asylum seeker arrivals at the U.S.-Mexico border drastically increased in late 2021 and 2022, the Biden administration quickly shifted its strategy in the fall of 2022 to try to reduce this number.
This report critically examines the evolution of U.S. migration and asylum policy under the Biden administration, taking stock of the many policy changes that occurred between January 2021 and December 2024. At its core, the Biden administration’s approach was two-fold: creating and encouraging the use of alternative legal pathways while also disincentivizing and physically preventing border crossings.
Expansionist elements included an unprecedented use of humanitarian parole, the creation of Safe Mobility Offices (SMOs) in several Latin American countries and the expansion of Temporary Protected Status (TPS). At the same time, the Biden administration aimed to position itself as a regional and international leader on migration via the Los Angeles (LA) Declaration on Migration launched at the 2022 Summit of the Americas and by advocating for economic support for host countries, broader legal migration pathways and humane enforcement.
Yet these efforts were coupled with highly restrictive measures that narrowed access to asylum at the border, including the upholding of Title 42 — initially imposed by the first Trump administration — until May 2023, the 2023 “Circumvention of Lawful Pathways” (CLP) rule which expanded the use of the CBP One app as the sole method by which to apply for asylum, and the 2024 “Securing the Border” policy which effectively ended access to asylum during periods of high arrivals.
Drawing on secondary sources, quantitative data and original interviews with more than 30 experts, the report assesses the short and long-term impact of these policies. It argues that former President Biden’s approach resulted in a set of highly bifurcated policies that failed to garner favour from either pro-immigrant factions or more hardline conservatives that deemed the situation at the border a “crisis”. Furthermore, the Biden administration’s willingness to resort to policies that severely undermined the right to territorial asylum in the U.S. paved the way for many of the restrictionist measures implemented during the initial months of the second Trump administration.
Finally, the report considers lessons from the Biden administration’s array of policies and its domestic political implications for the European Union (EU) and other European states, which face similar political challenges in the realm of migration and asylum. It argues that Europe could consider expanding regular pathways for migration following the example of the Biden administration — especially drawing on the model of the SMOs — but that European governments would need to do a better job of gaining public trust and extolling the benefits of any expansionist policies in ways that are legible to voters.
This report was originally published by the Mixed Migration Centre on Oct. 10, 2025. A full version of the report is available here.
