Democratic presidential candidate and former US Vice-President Joe Biden has said that he will lift the temporary suspension on H-1B visas.

“On day one, I’m going to send the legislative immigration reform bill to Congress to provide a roadmap to citizenship for 11 million undocumented immigrants who contribute so much to this country, including 1.7 million from the AAPI (American Association of Physicians of Indian-origin) community.

“My immigration policy is built around keeping families together, modernising an immigration system by keeping families, unification and diversity as pillars of our immigration system, which it used to be,” Biden said.

He alleged that Trump’s immigration policies are cruel and inhumane.

Biden said that he will take immediate action to protect dreamers, including more than 100,000 who are eligible for the plan from East and South Asia.

Biden also said that he will rescind the Muslim travel ban and immediately restore refugee admission.

The former Vice-President told town hall participants that he will “make it easier for qualified Green Card holders to move through this backlog”.

Trump, in April, gave an executive order to suspend green cards for 90 days. In June, he issued a proclamation which extended the suspension till December 31, 2020. The US every year allocates only 140,000 green cards for all employment-preference immigrants, including accompanying family members.

Currently, there is a backlog of almost 10 lakh foreign nationals and accompanying family members lawfully residing in the US. These applicants have been approved but are yet to receive employment green cards.

In his policy paper on immigration, Biden says that his high-skilled temporary visas should not be used to disincentive recruiting workers already in the US for in-demand occupations. “An immigration system that crowds out high-skilled workers in favour of only entry level wages and skills threatens American innovation and competitiveness,” the policy paper said.

Biden will work with Congress to first reform temporary visas to establish a wage-based allocation process and establish enforcement mechanisms to ensure they are aligned with the labour market and not used to undermine wages, it said. Then, Biden will support expanding the number of high-skilled visas and eliminating the limits on employment-based visas by country.