Say goodbye to excuses and open the door to immigration reform
The recent immigration reform proposal that has been sent to the Senate within Joe Biden’s Build Back Better plan, is a somewhat mediocre reform proposal. However, if approved, although the majority would be left out, many undocumented immigrants would benefit.
For more than 30 years, since the time that Ronald Reagan signed into law a reform that fixed the immigration status of around 3 million people, another law of this magnitude has not been carried out. And this taking into account that in a two-party system like the United States, sometimes Republicans are in the majority and other times Democrats are in the majority.
Meanwhile, undocumented immigrants know that deportation can come any day. So if it is not approved, it would be another year with that tremendous burden of not knowing when that day might arrive. And this is not only a constant load of stress for the undocumented immigrants themselves, but it is also something that impacts American citizens since there are millions of American citizens who have some kind of connection with someone who is an undocumented immigrant within this country.
Will the Democrats measure up this time? And for some Republicans, will now be the time that they will bring out their humanist side? For those who know the modus operandi of bipartisanship in the United States, both possibilities seem unattainable, but the most important thing is that immigrants continue to hope that comprehensive and inclusive immigration reform will sooner or later arrive.
The missing ingredient that could push politicians to get on their feet and do something good for immigrant workers is that people in solidarity keep pushing, that they keep mobilizing, that they keep convincing and moving consciences.
Hopefully the legislature this time is up to the task. And the fact is that legislators are not being asked something impossible, they are simply being asked one thing: to do their job, to do what they have not wanted to do for more than three decades.
35 years of excuses have already been enough, don’t you think?
Marco I. Dávila C. | Email: maidaca85@gmail.com | Facebook: Ixtli Amoxtli | Instagram: @xmiraza | Twitter: @pormiraza1 | #inmigrantes | #immigrants