2023-07-29 04:59:41
It has been very difficult for President Joe Biden’s administration to navigate the immigration issue. When he was campaigning he had a very progressive message on immigration; he talked about how things were going to change, especially after the presidency of Donald Trump, that he was so anti-immigrant.
But from what we have seen in the last three years, it has been difficult for Biden to carry out what he promised. He was moving his message from progressive to much more centrist. The issue reached the Court. There are demands that the Biden administration has placed on the states and that the states have placed on Biden. The president has faced the governor of Florida and Texas. A fight that can even reach the Supreme Court.
Thousands of migrants still arrive at the US border, although the policy that Biden is carrying out makes the process develop – as they describe it – in a “more orderly” way. People who want to request asylum, instead of presenting themselves at the border, must go through a process before arriving. They wanted to change the narrative of Title 42, and indeed they have. Although the Republicans have not been satisfied.
The migrant issue is one of the central issues of the (pre) electoral agenda. The Republicans mention that it is not known who is entering the country, that the borders are open; an example to say that Joe Biden has not been an effective president, that he is a weak president. And not only the candidates focus on this issue, the voters themselves see it as a central issue. Republican voters say they want to vote for a Republican to take charge of border security. They may live in Wisconsin, in New York, far from the southern border, but Republicans always mention the same thing.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, a Republican, has been pursuing a highly anti-immigrant policy. At the end of last year he sent a plane with migrants, who had crossed the border, to the island of Martha’s Vineyard, with the aim of removing them from his state. That plane was full of Venezuelan migrants and what was expected was that, in South Florida, where there are many Venezuelans, a response would be heard, protests, that the maneuver would be criticized.
And in the end, with the midterm elections, De Santis won with the vote of a majority of Venezuelans. What we have seen with politicians like Ron DeSantis and Donald Trump is that the Hispanic community is more divided than one would expect on the issue of immigration.
Texas recently deployed a maritime “floating wall” on the border with Mexico. They want to have the perfect display. In the midterm campaign we saw many Republicans, and even some Democrats, go to the border to do commercials and ads. They did them in front of the wall –although only about 80 kilometers were covered– to give their message from the borders. In truth, when you look at the studies, you see that this is not the most effective way to combat the problem.
*Washington Post Politics Correspondent. From Miami.
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