Joe Biden began his Government with a great gesture to the Latino electorate. In his first hours in the White House, the president sent Congress legislation that sought to “restore humanity and American values” to the immigration system. The rule intended to automatically grant residence permits (green cards) to dreamers, people protected by TPS and undocumented farmers who were in the United States before 2021. The law went to die at the Capitol, where it crashed before the Republican wall in Washington. That same president has presented 40 months later a controversial restriction on asylum, a measure considered the harshest adopted by a Democrat in power.
What has led Biden to deliver this coup in an election year? The distance between the two measures is not a straight line, but rather a bumpy path that has been drawn by the pragmatism of the Administration and the whim of public opinion, which has veered to the right on the issue of immigration after the severe inheritance. of Trump. It may be thought that Biden has taken steps forward with the objective he set for himself, but he has also gone backwards in another direction.
The Government’s legacy in immigration policy was built in the first months of its arrival in power. In addition to the law, which created a clear eight-year path for 10.5 million people to have papers, a series of decrees and measures followed. He raised the limit on refugees who could enter the United States that Trump had kept at a minimum. He also reactivated the granting of residence permits, which the former president froze in 2020 with the excuse of the health emergency.
In the first months of the Democratic Administration, Biden tried to contrast with his predecessor. It was one of his campaign promises. “It is a moral failure and a national shame when a father and his baby drown on our shores. When children are locked up in crowded detention centers and the Government must keep them there indefinitely,” the then-candidate stated on his website. Among his commitments was to take urgent action to undo Trump’s legacy and modernize the immigration system.
Reality forced him to take other routes. According to official figures, in fiscal year 2020, immigration authorities documented some 646,000 arrests. The pandemic is partly responsible for this low number for a busy area such as the border with Mexico. A year later, however, Biden’s first in power, arrests reached 1.9 million. The number continued to skyrocket to reach 2.5 million last year.
Thomas Homan, a former Trump era official who led the police in charge of deporting undocumented immigrants, assures that this enormous number of immigrants tests the response capacity of the Border Patrol, the federal force that monitors the more than 3,000 kilometers of border line. Mexico. In order to process such numbers, it was necessary for many elements to attend to large groups, leaving several kilometers of the division with little supervision.
Join Morning Express to follow all the news and read without limits.
Subscribe
In order to quickly process the number of people arriving at the southern border, Biden left Title 42 in place, a measure that Trump put into effect during the pandemic. In short, what he was doing was closing the border to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. Scientists ruled out the effectiveness of the measure because the virus was arriving by air along both coasts and not by land via immigrants. But Title 42 served to quickly deport illegal immigrants and advance Trumpism’s most radical positions on border control.
The Biden Government received harsh criticism for maintaining Trump’s tool to combat irregular immigration. The rule helped quickly deport 2.8 million people, almost mostly to Mexico. The president tried to lift it on more than one occasion, causing the Republican governors to sue the Executive to leave the rule in place. Title 42 finally expired a year ago, on May 11, 2023. It was in place for 38 months, affecting many asylum seekers. When the haze cleared, Biden’s image as an ally of migrants had already disappeared.
This despite the fact that the Democratic Administration has been the one that has admitted the most people under the parole humanitarian. This protection status, different from TPS (Temporary Protected Status), has benefited tens of thousands of people fleeing armed conflicts such as those in Afghanistan and Ukraine. Also to those who leave collapsed countries like Haiti or Venezuela. According to the CBS network, this Government has admitted one million people under this figure. Republican congressmen demand that the use of parole comes to an end. Citizens of six other countries are protected by TPS until July 2025.
Call to mobilization
In a measure perceived almost unanimously with electoral overtones, Biden announced a week ago an executive order that allows the border to be closed when the number of arrests exceeds 2,500 per day over the course of a week. It is a very low ceiling. In the days after the announcement, 3,800 people were arrested. In December, illegal crossings were close to 10,000. In addition, the new decree makes it more difficult to apply for asylum for those arriving by land. The Administration reduced from 24 to 4 the hours that a detainee has to consult a lawyer to help him prepare his first interview with the immigration authorities.
The Coalition for Human Immigrant Rights (Chirla) has called for a demonstration this Saturday, in which Biden and former President Barak Obama will be in Los Angeles to hold a fundraising event for the campaign.
“The protest is part of a week in which we want to call the president’s attention to keep his promise and protect his legacy,” the organization says. Chirla seeks that the president act to extend the protection of undocumented immigrants with DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals), who arrived as minors in this country. The program, like many immigration control measures, is experiencing a conservative attack in the courts. A Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals could suspend it after 12 years of validity. If this happens, it would be bad news that would be added to Joe Biden’s account in the midst of his re-election campaign.
Follow all the international information on Facebook and xor in our weekly newsletter.
