Biden: His immigration reform requires more than Democratic control of Congress

Biden: His immigration reform requires more than Democratic control of Congress      

Biden: While the election victory in Georgia gave Democrats control of the Senate, President-elect Joe Biden will need Republican votes to pass the immigration reform offered during the campaign.  

The victories on Tuesday of Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff in the runoff elections in Georgia gave Democrats control of the Senate for the first time since 2008 when Barack Obama won the presidential election.

 

Warnock narrowly beat Republican Senator Kelly Loeffler (a faithful ally of President Donald Trump) (50.9 to 49.1%), while Ossoff also won by a similar margin (50.5 to 49.5%) over Republican Senator David Perdue, co-author of the failed immigration reform sponsored by President Donald Trump that included a merit-based ticket syst

 

Although both victories leave the Democrats with 50 votes in the full Senate, the same number that the Republicans have, it will correspond to the vice president-elect, Kamala Harris, to break the tie in favour of Biden's party.

 

For their part, the Democrats will also control the House of Representatives for the next two years, with 222 votes out of the 435 seats that make up the plenary session.

 

Lawyers ask to extend the deadline to comment on the rule that eliminates work permits for immigrants with deportation orders.

The new setting

The negotiating power of the president-elect Joe Biden depended on the results of Georgia. Now that you know the real power you have, you can ensure that your immigration reform plan can be heard and debated in both houses, but to pass it will need more than just the discipline of your party.

 

Biden has reiterated that in the first 100 days of his term he will send an immigration bill to the Senate "with a path to citizenship for more than 11 million undocumented people, a promise he launched during the campaign and that the most conservative republicans look to with suspicion.

 

The president-elect - Biden - who was certified this week by Congress and served as vice president during the two administrations of Barack Obama (2009-2017) - has also said that he will use the executive power to, through decrees, undo the actions of Donald Trump in the last four years, changes that changed the American immigration system.

 

The question is: can Biden convince the Senate to support his immigration plan with the votes that the Democrats have?

 

Biden's reform

The president-elect refers to “renovate” the migration legislation and that he will cooperate with Committee to do so. If he does not have the support of both chambers, Biden has mentioned that he will undo through executive orders everything done by Trump since January 2017 and will strengthen the legal framework approved by the legislature.

 

Among the possible decrees, experts mention the recovery of the asylum policy, the withdrawal of extraordinary powers granted to border agents and return it to the immigration judges, and the elimination of restrictions imposed on the immigration courts.

 

They also consider possible the lifting of obstacles to legal immigration, the protection of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), and the extension and granting of new TPS to undocumented persons from Societies with difficulties and in need of benefactor benefit.

 

The executive route also includes a moratorium on raids and deportations and establishing new expulsion priorities focused on those foreigners who have committed serious criminal offenses. That would annul what was decreed on January 25, 2017, which stipulates the undocumented stay constitutes a threat to the public and national security of the United States.

 

To pass immigration reform, Biden needs 218 votes in the House of Representatives and 60 in the Senate, where he only has 50.

 

Moderate Republican sources consulted by Univision Noticias say that support for Biden's immigration reform "will depend on its content."

 

"Without a doubt, a plan 'part by part' will be more successful than a gigantic package", indicates a republican source that asked to keep his man under reserve. In a divided Congress, as it is now, he warns, "reform is unlikely."

 

It also indicates that, in general, in the midterm election "the party in the White House loses a part of the control of Congress, so President-elect Biden will have two years to achieve it."

 

 

In two years

In the first years of their terms, both Obama and Trump governed with a majority of both houses, which two years later they lost.

 

During that time, they did not gain large votes to favour their individual migration plans, one in favour of legalizing the undocumented and the other in favour of raids, deportations, and severe limitations on legal immigration.

 

Moderate Republicans now say that Biden's immigration reform "depends on the plan," and that the best chance points to reform "piecemeal."

 

"It's time to see how serious Democrats are about working in a bipartisan way with Republicans," said the source, even though in the last four years Republicans did not use enough political capital to do so with Democrats on immigration matters.

 

The moderate Republicans further say that "with all the levers of the federal government under their control, (the Democrats) can do a lot unilaterally, but for significant and prolonged change, bipartisan agreements are the best route."

 

It should be noted that the Trump administration, in the last four years, radically modified the immigration system through executive orders and memoranda without the support of Congress. Now Republicans hope that Joe Biden will not use the same route, but in all this time the plenary session of Congress did not make much effort to stop the president and seek bipartisan support in both houses to change the immigration laws.

 

Some Republicans speak of bringing back the 2013 speech when then-Republican House Leader John Boehner rejected an immigration reform plan approved by the Senate with bipartisan support and said that such a law would only be possible 'part by'.   

 

“Assuming that they commence with a bit between the revamp, for illustration, with the dreamers (DACA) and then combat the problem of visas for diverse agricultural workers (H-2B), there may be support. Plus, there is backing for this line in the Senate,” says Wadi Gaytán, spokesperson for La Iniciativa Libre, a group that moves a key moderate bloc in both houses of Congress.

 

"Plus, if we talk in a more complete plan, as stated so far, backing for a poll will bank on the particulars," he states.

 

"In general, we support reform. And we believe that Biden has a great opportunity, but to say that we are going to support the reform of the Democrats we have to see the plan," he adds.

 

“Besides, it will be hard to get ballots to draw a plan that provides allegiance to the unrecorded without them (Legislators) feeling comfortable that this population (undocumented) is not going to continue growing. We do not want that in another 15 years we will have the same problem that we are seeing now”, he emphasizes.

 

Another Republican source warns that “the time has come for the party to have frank conversations about what happened (during the Trump administration), where we are and where we are going to get as a party. It is a key point of reflection in the history of the country” and in this dilemma, the immigration issue and the future of the 11 million undocumented persons looms.

 

Institutions that strive for the authority of migrants aspire that, from the early minute, Biden will accomplish his agreement.

 

“We hope that he will permit it, that he will, that he will forward a migration revised plan to the legislators as he has agreed,” says Angelica Salas, executive director of the alliance for the Human Authority of migrants of Los Angeles (CHIRLA).

 

To the question regarding the electoral results in Georgia, the leader said that the Republican leader of the Senate, Mitch McConnell, will no longer continue to preside over the plenary session and that from January 20 new opportunities open up.

 

With the Senate under Democratic control, Congressman Charles Schumer (New York) will assume the presidency of the Upper House.

 

For Gustavo Torres, commanding chief of Casa de Maryland, “the constitutional win in Georgia bolsters the prospects to reason. But if (the reform) is not achieved, we hope that Biden signs executive orders to protect DACA, the TPS, decrees a moratorium on deportations, and welcomes refugees.

 

The 2013 reform

On 27 June 2013, at the start of the second Obama government, the parliament - managed by the Democrats - approved with 68 votes in favour and 32 against the bipartisan plan of immigration reform S. 744 that was arranged by the so-called Body of 8 formed of 4 constitutional and 4 Republican lawmakers.

 

The strategy was established on a solid inherent of border safety and constituted an avenue to allegiance for unrecorded individuals who had been in the country for a long time, had no criminal record, and paid taxes.

When the plan was sent to the House of Representatives, at that time under the command of Boehner, the response was emphatic: only a plan will be accepted 'part by part', as the Republicans now shuffle that from January will be the opposition party.

 

Biden News - Boehner controlled, post the go-ahead of the bipartisan plan, that the defiance to the strategy is because of the actuality that the American people "are sceptical of big comprehensive initiatives" and rather to discuss the problem of migration revision "one level at a time."

 

What Boehner didn't take into account at the time was that, according to polls, the majority of Americans favoured immigration reform with a path to citizenship for the undocumented, support that has grown in the last four years.