Biden should stand for immigrants

By Ricardo Martir

It has been 116 days since President Biden’s inauguration. During his campaign one of the  promises he made was to revert all inhumane immigration policies made by the Trump administration. 

We’ve yet to see if he has kept his promise to the immigrant community, or if it’s just empty promises from politicians as usual.

From the start of his presidency, Biden has been faced with challenging and even contradicting circumstances that make it difficult for himself and his administration to know where to begin. 

Every decision President Biden makes he is likely to face backlash, regardless of whether or not the proposals are agree with the Democratic or Republican points of view.

In January, Biden began his term by writing more executive orders on imigration than any other topic, in an attempt to revert all of Trump’s policies that were inhumane and plain racist.

Although his plans were with good intentions, the situation seems to have backfired. 

Instead of all immigrants receiving a comfortable welcome, they were received with asylum in detention center camps that were overflowing. 

This was especially concerning  with the amount of  COVID-19 cases at the time.

Former President Donald Trump addressed immigration with the ideas of the far right. 

This left current President Joe Biden to pick up the pieces that Trump left behind with his conservative ways. 

Regardless of what is done, Biden’s actions will be criticized.

This begs the question: does the resolution lie in the hands of a certain political party or is this more of a humanitarian issue? 

Why do immigrants continue to leave their countries year after year and risk being stranded, killed and trafficked? 

They do this with the hope to maybe one day have a life they and their future generations deserve.

That’s because immigrants flee their countries to escape corruption in politics and scarce career opportunities, regardless of whether or not they have a higher education. 

“Well respected” careers are reserved for the rich and their families, leaving the public with nothing but luck and hope when wanting to take their career to the next level.

They also come fleeing gang violence where it’s kill or be killed, but to an extreme in comparison to the U.S. Previous generations came fleeing literal war. 

The civil war in El Salvador is well known and highly documented in the Hispanic community. 

Both the government military and the opposing militia forcibly recruited young children since there was no age requirement. 

It didn’t matter how old they were as long as they could pick up a gun and withstand the recoil after a shot was fired.

The majority of immigrants don’t come to the U.S. asking for handouts, they come to work. 

They serve the country, oftentimes working without rights because they believe they don’t have rights. This leaves them to work the most tiring jobs and in conditions where they are often exploited. 

No, immigrants aren’t perfect, but they definitely provide more to the country than what they take away.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *