Democratic mayors and politicians in major US cities, such as New York, have been lobbying Washington for months over the flood of undocumented immigrants they receive. The main claim was to request the simplification of procedures so that they could access the labor market legally.
President Joe Biden, who had been reluctant to the proposal because it meant providing ammunition to Republicans, was throwing balls out. Until he gave in.
The Administration will immediately and temporarily grant work permits to 472,000 Venezuelans fleeing the humanitarian crisis in the country and who entered the United States before July 31. The decision, which gives them 18 months of protection against possible deportation, comes at a very critical time.
At the border with Mexico, there has been another rise in the entry of undocumented immigrants, with 9,000 arrests on Thursday alone. Rolando Salinas, mayor of Eagle Pass (Texas), declared a state of emergency a day earlier because the flow of arrivals reached 2,500 people that day alone.
These facts strengthen the ultra-conservatives, who demand new anti-immigration measures or, otherwise, they will leave the federal administration without money after September 30, when the fiscal year ends and the budgets must be approved. The decision to “legalize” the almost half a million undocumented people reinforces his thesis that Biden has opened the border and that the nation, threatened by an invasion, faces the danger of losing its idiosyncrasy.
Kevin McCarthy, Republican Speaker of the Lower House, is “kidnapped” by the group of extremist legislators. There are many possibilities that from September 30th what is known as a shutdown of the Government will take place. This means that federal public services will cease to be provided except for those considered essential.
McCarthy’s ultra-colleagues are making it a condition that the budget proposal include a major line item to curb the influx of immigrants, at the expense of a new $24 billion in aid to Ukraine in its war with Russia, something of little or no concern to them. The White House and progressives oppose it.
McCarthy knows that he is in the hands of the minority of co-religionists, bullied by Donald Trump. They are the lawmakers who forced a vote 15 times to accept McCarthy as president. Now they are threatening to force his resignation. He could overcome the obstacle if he launched a proposal agreed by moderate Republicans and Democrats that would be approved by the
However, a solution like this could mean his resignation from the coveted position. His surrender took shape again yesterday. After suffering two consecutive defeats of his military funding project, McCarthy announced that he will withdraw 300 million intended for Ukraine that was in the Pentagon budget, as the ultras demanded.
The point is that behind this political marketing there are people and they are on the streets of the United States. Like Randy, a man in his early 20s who was struggling. He was a home delivery man and didn’t know how to get around to make the next delivery, in the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Actually, the address was on the corner.
He showed a paper to a passerby, but she was unable to understand what he was asking. He spoke in Spanish. Next to him was another person who did understand him and indicated the ease of going to the other place. “I don’t know English at all”, he confessed. “But I will learn from it, I want survival and a good life”, he promised.
It happened a few weeks ago. Randy, an underground worker making half the wages of others, explained that he was a Venezuelan who took almost two months to flee the country’s poverty and reach the United States through endless tribulations , such as overcoming the Darién jungle and crossing the Rio Grande.
After he was arrested by the Border Patrol, he became one of the migrants who boarded buses chartered by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and sent to progressive cities that offer sanctuary to undocumented immigrants, especially New York, where in one year more than 100,000 people have been welcomed.
For some time now, in the subway of the Big Apple you can see many mothers with children selling sweets, women on the corners of the Hispanic neighborhood of Corona (Queens) soliciting or offering sex or groups of men sitting on benches in wait for someone to offer them a job.
Hostels are overflowing – to the detriment of the usual homeless legions – and camps are set up. A hotel like the Roosevelt, in the middle of Manhattan, which still retains the chandeliers of an era of splendor and a victim of the pandemic crisis, has been transformed into a kind of Ellis Island of the 21st century, where you receive, “processes” and shelters these immigrants, who, again, are mostly fleeing the regime of Nicolás Maduro.
Randy and many like him are part of the 60,000 migrants and compatriots in the Big Apple who will soon be able to start applying legally for work and leaving the shelters funded by the public treasury. They are part of the contingent of beneficiaries of an expiring measure, similar to the one adopted with other countries that suffered catastrophes, and which the Administration justifies due to the worsening of conditions in Venezuela.
Debate takes place over whether the decision will cause a ripple effect. The Republicans do not doubt it and speak of “amnesty for those who entered illegally”. The Secretary of National Security, Alejandro Mayorkas, replied that anyone who arrived after July 31 will be deported. And immigration experts do not establish a link between temporary protection and increased immigration. So, it all depends on who and how you look at it.
