The risk of deportation, a threat to 3.8 million American families

Millions of Americans risk being deported After the expiration on Saturday of the moratorium launched 11 months ago by the coronavirus pandemic, as the Delta variant rages on and the economy turns only for a few.

For Joe Biden it’s a real emergency on which, however, his hands are tied: indeed, the Supreme Court has ruled in recent months that any extension of the cessation of evictions should go through Congress. The House of Representatives, led by Nancy Pelosi, tried, in a race against time, to pass a law, but in vain in the face of the firmness of the Republicans.

On the horizon now a new crisis is looming it even affects the Democratic Party, since the Liberals point the finger at the White House for having invested them with responsibilities Thursday, 48 hours before the expiry of the moratorium and on the eve of the summer vacation.

The government dismissed the charges and, after Congress, called on US states to act on Sunday. “Each state and local government must use the funds received” as part of the Covid-19 aid “to prevent any possible eviction,” Biden said in dialogue with the press, aware that a very small portion of the resources provided by the federal government went to struggling tenants.

In reality, of the $ 47,000 million made available to states by Washington as part of the emergency rent assistance program, only $ 3,000 million has been disbursed.

The problems

It is therefore an insignificant figure which highlights the problems of an initiative which struggled to take off from the start, with very strict aid access settings and a lack of clarity.

Last December, six months after the sanction of the aid plan by former President Donald Trump, only 12% of the first 25 billion the will had reached out to Americans in difficulty.

Now more than three months since Biden approved 21,500 million more dollars for the program, even less was spent.

According to Treasury data, only 36 of the more than 400 cities, counties and states that received the funds were able to spend half of the amount raised in June. On the other hand, there are 49 who have not spent a penny.

According to Census Bureau estimates, there are 11 million Americans adults who are late in paying rent but cannot be quantified, so they run the risk of being evicted in the short term. Other censuses estimate that 3.8 million families are at risk of losing their homes immediately or within weeks.

For the government, it is an imminent crisis that can put the president’s economic agenda on the back burner, who sees the $ 1 billion infrastructure plan currently under discussion in the Senate as one of the key elements.

The fear of the White House is that the expiration of the moratorium provoke social tensions Indeed, the Covid-19 continues to circulate with the highly contagious Delta variant and the danger is the overcrowding of public reception centers, where maintaining social distancing is more difficult.

Not to mention the risk of a possible increase in violence in a country where the current (boreal) summer is already proving bloody.

Agency AANE

PB