Biden presented his immigration reform that aims to give citizenship to 11 million undocumented immigrants

WASHINGTON.- At the request of the president Joe biden, Democrats presented to Congress the most ambitious and progressive immigration reform bill since the Ronald Reagan administration, an initiative that aspires to grant citizenship to some 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the United States over eight years, including thousands of Argentines.

“This is an important first step in implementing immigration policies that bring families together, grow and improve our economy and protect our security,” the president said in a statement.

“These are not Democratic or Republican priorities, but American ones. I have laid out my vision of what it will take to reform our immigration system and look forward to working with leaders in Congress to achieve it, ”he added.

As was the case with the last immigration reform project, in 2013, under the government of Barack obamaDemocrats aspire to “come out of the shadows” of the millions of foreigners, most of them Mexicans, who have lived in the country for years, work and pay taxes. But unlike this bill, which was crafted by a bipartisan group of senators, Democrats have now launched their new offensive. no republican approval, and its initiative has a much more pro-immigrant profile, and ignores large injections of resources to strengthen border security.

The new reform bill, like the last, seems to have little chance of going through Congress.

The Democrats’ initiative aims to assign roles to a large universe of undocumented immigrants, including young people called dreamers, who traveled with their parents as a child and grew up in the country, as well as refugees and Asians who were granted temporary residence permits in the country. If successful, the project would mark a 180 ° turn in relation to the immigration policy applied by the government of Donald trump, which ordered the construction of a wall on the border with Mexico, gave the green light to all evictions, applied a policy of “zero tolerance” to income at the border, closed the country to refugees and suspended the benefits that Obama had granted him. at dreamers.

Trump’s policy had broad support among Republicans and was strongly rejected by Democrats. The reform of Biden and the Democrats is now aimed at achieving the opposite effect.

“We have an economic and moral imperative to adopt a bold and inclusive major immigration reform that leaves no one behind, not even our own. dreamers I who have temporary permits, not our farm workers and meat packers, not our essential workers, not our parents, friends and neighbors, ”said Democratic Senator Bob Menendez at a virtual press conference in which he presented the project.

The initiative is a major element of the Biden administration’s legislative agenda, but the White House has made it clear that Its top priority is the nearly two trillion dollar bailout to ease the blow from the coronavirus pandemic. Immigration reform will recycle an old clash in the country: the fight between those who want a tough policy, and if they could, they would expel all those who live without a residence permit, and those who rely on the promise of a nation of immigrants ”and they would open borders to all.

“We know that the way forward requires negotiations with others, but we are not going to make any entry concessions,” Menendez predicted.

The law can be passed without problem in the House of Representatives, under the control of the ruling party. But, as it is written, has no chance of success in the Senate, where Democrats and Republicans have 50 seats. Due to upper house rules, at least 60 votes are required for a law to pass. Faced with this reality, the Democrats assess whether they are trying to move forward with the project as it is and wait for the changes proposed by the Senate, or whether, on the contrary, they are breaking the law in part to try to move forward, for example, with the dreamers, the group of undocumented migrants that arouses the most sympathy in the country, then continues with the rest of the undocumented population.

“I salute the president for introducing the bill,” Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi, the most powerful Democrat on Capitol Hill, told reporters on Thursday. Pelosi left open the possibility of fragmenting the reform. “There are others who want to do it little by little and it can be a good approach. This has to be decided by Congress, ”he said.

The White House recognizes that the bill falls far short of garnering the 60 votes it needs in the Senate. And the possibility of moving forward with coins has resonated with Republicans. Senator Lindsey Graham, one of the lawmakers who worked on the 2013 Immigration Reform Bill that was passed in the Senate and buried in the then Republican-controlled Lower House, was also in favor to move forward in parts, starting with the dreamers.

“The more people you legalize, the more stuff you have to donate, so we’ll see. It starts a conversation, ”Graham told NBC News.

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