Biden signs orders reversing major Trump immigration policies
Through another proclamation, President Biden ordered officials to pause wall construction along the U.S.-Mexico border within seven days.
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Camilo Montoya-Galvez is the Immigration Correspondent at CBS News, where his reporting is featured across multiple programs and platforms, including national broadcast shows, CBS News 24/7, CBSNews.com and the organization's social media accounts.
Montoya-Galvez has received numerous awards for his groundbreaking and in-depth reporting on immigration, including a national Emmy Award, the Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award and several New York Emmy Awards.
Over several years, he has built one of the leading and most trusted national sources of immigration news, filing breaking news pieces, as well as exclusive reports and in-depth feature stories on the impact of major policy changes.
Montoya-Galvez was the first reporter to obtain and publish the names of the Venezuelan deportees sent by the U.S. to a notorious mega-prison in El Salvador, with little to no due process. Using that list, he co-produced a "60 Minutes" report that found most of the deported men did not have apparent criminal records, despite the administration's claims that they were all dangerous criminals and gang members. Montoya-Galvez was also the first journalist to interview Jennifer Vasquez Sura, the wife of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was wrongfully deported to El Salvador and imprisoned at the CECOT prison.
In 2025 alone, Montoya Galvez broke dozens of other exclusive stories. He disclosed the internal Trump administration plan to revoke the legal status of hundreds of thousands of migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela; landed the first national network sit-down interviews with the current heads of ICE and Border Patrol; and obtained government data showing that illegal crossings along the U.S.-Mexico border in fiscal year 2025 plummeted to the lowest level since 1970 amid Trump's crackdown.
Montoya Galvez's North Star is to cover immigration with nuance and fairness, in a nonpartisan, comprehensive and compelling way that respects the dignity of those at the center of this story
Before joining CBS News, Montoya-Galvez spent over two years as an investigative unit producer and assignment desk editor at Telemundo's television station in New York City. His work at Telemundo earned three New York Emmy Awards. Earlier, he was the founding editor of After the Final Whistle, an online bilingual publication featuring stories that highlight soccer's role in contemporary society.
Montoya-Galvez was born in Cali, Colombia's third-largest city, and raised in New Jersey. He earned a bachelor's degree in Media and Journalism Studies and Spanish from Rutgers University.
Through another proclamation, President Biden ordered officials to pause wall construction along the U.S.-Mexico border within seven days.
Farm workers and undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. children would be placed on an expedited pathway to U.S. citizenship.
If confirmed by the Senate, Alejandro Mayorkas, the son of Cuban refugees, would lead a department facing a host of serious issues, both inside and outside the U.S.
Public health experts are urging ICE to implement a vaccination plan for its detention system, which is currently holding more than 15,000 immigrants.
The president-elect told Latino leaders that his immigration bill may not pass during his first 100 days in office, citing the pandemic and Senate impeachment trial.
"We never expected to experience so much suffering on this border," said one migrant father.
"We need to take away children," then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions told U.S. prosecutors, according to a Justice Department report.
Chad Wolf says battles over the legality of his appointment "divert attention and resources away from the important work of the Department in this critical time."
One rule would allow border officials to disqualify migrants who exhibit symptoms of the coronavirus from U.S. asylum.
The limits would have generally disqualified victims of gang violence, gender-based persecution and domestic abuse from U.S. asylum.
President Trump issued the restrictions in the spring and expanded them in the summer, citing the economic recession caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
Like the Obama administration, President Trump sought to hold migrant families with children in detention indefinitely to deter border crossings.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement deportations reached a 15-year low during the final full fiscal year of the Trump administration.
Transition officials said the changes in immigration policy changes — especially along the U.S.-Mexico border — will take time, given the ongoing pandemic.
The inclusion of relief for mixed-status families, who did not receive stimulus checks in the spring, was a bipartisan effort.