Migration, a serious problem for Joe Biden | The…

The issue of immigration to the United States is out of control and polarizing the public. It is a structural, multi-causal problem that is difficult to solve. Today, the situation of minors who travel alone from Central America is at its center. Last month, 20,000 of them were interned in reception centers. But there are barely 13,000 beds available for sleeping. Donald Trump’s chauvinistic rhetoric has shifted to the hesitant action of Joe Biden, who is trying to buy time. The policy of the current president is opposed by two bands. By the most reactionary wing of the Republicans and by the Democratic left. A bill to regularize 11 million immigrants who are already in the country and undocumented, would seem doomed to fail with the balance of power that currently exists in Congress.

The April 5 meeting between the President of the United States and that of Mexico, Andrés López Obrador, served to reach an agreement. But it’s just an aspirin for youA border in the throes of death, besieged childhood, human trafficking and a never-ending despair. The image of March with a group of kneeling migrants in Tijuana dressed in T-shirts saying “Biden, let us in” was one of the most expressive postcards of this humanitarian tragedy.

The Democratic government is trying to differentiate itself from Trump’s tirades against Central Americans, his exaltation of the border wall and authoritarian politics, but it does not strike the antidote to alleviate the problem. The entry of children without adult companions left Biden in a difficult situation. To the point that the president asked in an interview with ABC News: “I can say very clearly: don’t come.”. It was in vain. Last January, border police arrested 5,871 undocumented minors: since the start of the pandemic, this was the highest number.

An old plan the president approved to legalize and grant US citizenship to 11 million immigrants – whose situation has been discussed since 2013 – doesn’t give the impression it could move forward. The balance of power in the Senate does not allow this. Biden would need to be backed by a significant number of Republicans in the House where there is parity and even though Vice President Kamala Harris would tie the tie for Democrats because she is Speaker of the Upper House. 60 votes are needed to pass a law like the one on immigration. It is not won with a simple majority because the Senate governs an old parliamentary principle that in the United States is called obstructionism or obstructionism.

In other words, a de facto supermajority is needed to impose certain laws that require in-depth debate. A policy that began during the days of slavery. The rules protecting this operating system are not easily changed. Its abolition has been delayed. Historically, Republicans have benefited much more from this Senate call than Democrats.

Biden’s plan contemplates those who were already living in the United States on January 1, 2021 so that they can access residency in five years and citizenship in three more if they meet a series of requirements.

The president is questioned by the most ultramontane Republicans on the right. They accuse him of “opening the borders”. A bloc called the United States First has just been created in Congress. No sensitivity can be expected from their immigration policies. A document released by the group, including Georgia’s far-right representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, points out that only those who “can make financial contributions” and “have shown respect for the culture and the state of right of this nation “.

The MP won her seat for the southern state by campaigning on a military vehicle and parody of shooting with a telescopic sniper rifle on a tripod against posters with the words “socialism”, “gun control” and “Open borders”. . A follower of Qanon, she defined the Black Lives Matter movement as a terrorist organization, mocked the massacres that often take place in American schools, complained about a government loan to the Palestinian Authority and claimed responsibility responsibility for building the wall indicted Trump with Narrative from Mexico. Her extreme positions provoked a reaction from her peers who excluded her from the Education and Labor Committee of the Lower House. It represents the thought closest to the former president.

Taylor Greene is the opposite of Democratic MPs like Ilham Omar, who is of Somali descent and who already used the adjective “shameful” to define the president’s immigration policy: “It is simply unacceptable and inconceivable that the administration Biden does not immediately repeal Donald Trump’s limit of harmful, xenophobic and racist refugees, ”he commented.

In mid-April, it was learned that Biden would not allow increasing the number of incomes in the country for immigrants. On Friday 16, the president retraced the path that Secretary of State Antony Blinken had mapped out in February, a descendant of immigrants fleeing Nazism and Stalinism, formed in France in the 1970s. The official had proposed to the Congress of increase the number of refugees from 15,000 to 62,500, but the US president, under the pandemic argument, confirmed that the lower of these figures “continues to be justified by humanitarian concerns and, if not , it is of national interest ”.

This comment from a few weeks ago has earned him sharp criticism from his own strength and from NGOs helping migrants. Puerto Rican MP for New York Alexandria Ocasio-Cortés tweeted that “the Department of Homeland Security should not exist, the agencies must be reorganized, the ICE (the immigration police) must be eliminated, we must ban for-profit detention centers, create climate refugee status and more ”. Integra with Ilham Omar and other deputies the block The Squad (the squad), located to the left of the Democratic Party.

Biden was left in the midst of the great immigration debate, almost immobilized. One of the country’s most ultra-conservative governors, Greg Abbott, held his government accountable in March for “recklessly releasing hundreds of illegal immigrants with COVID into communities in Texas.” He is a member of the Tea Party which has just authorized the non-use of chin straps in this state and the opening of 100% of economic activity. Texas has passed 50,000 deaths since the start of the pandemic. On the border of this state and others with Mexico, the fate of thousands of migrant youth and children is at stake.

Government spokeswoman Jen Psaki reported on April 19 that Biden did not mean to speak of an immigration “crisis” in his recent statements, but of the “crisis” in Central America which is causing waves of dreamers in the country. With that in mind, the White House spokeswoman said that before May 15, an increase in the 15,000 migrants that Trump had placed as a ceiling for entering the United States would be announced. The criticism of democratic progressivism has been felt. They have forced the government to take one more turn on a problem that may turn into an intractable case.