By Jorge Luis Macias/La Opinion
Immigrant advocates, lawyers and political experts in Los Angeles reacted without much fuss to the executive orders decreed by President Joe Biden to protect thousands of people who are not US citizens, because they know that Republicans will challenge the legality in court of the measures.
On June 18, Biden announced two new immigration policies. The first policy provides a potential path to permanent residence for certain undocumented immigrants married to U.S. citizens. The second policy will enable DACA recipients to get an H-1B or other employment-based temporary visa.
Why Now?
I think it is something positive, but also motivated by politics in an electoral campaign, just like Barack Obama did,” declared Miguel Tínker Salas, historian and professor at Pomona College. “It is a remedy that could have been implemented much earlier to benefit 500,000 people.”
Tínker Salas maintained that the final results of immigration relief for spouses of US citizens and their children “is still not decipherable,” because it could be reversed by another president.
He considered that the fact that Biden made the announcement five months before the presidential election, on November 5, is because he feels that he is in trouble with the electoral preference of the voters.
Political Ploy?
“Biden faces challenges on multiple fronts with young people, with those who defend human rights in Palestine, with Latinos because he has not fulfilled the promise of comprehensive immigration reform,” he added. “Also with environmentalists, and with those who are worried about the economy, because even though inflation is more controlled, prices have not gone down.”
Salvador Sanabria, executive director of El Rescate, analyzed that the executive orders represent “one of lime and another of sand.”
“First, it closed the border for asylum seekers from around the world, which is a law protected by international law and United States Federal Law,” he explained.
Secondly, the president offered immigration relief to regularize mixed families of citizens with whom they do not have a regularized immigration status.
“In political terms, it is a good tactical move by Biden’s advisors, although we know that opponents of this kind of immigration relief are going to challenge it in court, and that way the president will have the opportunity to tell people, “ Look, there are those who oppose my immigration option from the first day of my mandate.”
Read the full analysis at La Opinion.
