By: Maribel Hastings
By: Maribel Hastings
The recommendation of the Senate Parliamentarian not to include language for the legalization of undocumented persons in the spending plan that would be considered through conciliation is, obviously, a setback. But that does not mean that Democrats will sit idly by to keep putting off this issue. On the contrary, the Democrats who still control the White House and Congress, albeit by narrow majorities, have to get really creative to come up with some mechanism that allows as many undocumented immigrants as possible to gain a path to citizenship.
There are humanitarian, economic, political and historical reasons for them to do so. There are people who have been waiting decades to regularize and it has been almost 35 years since the amnesty of 1986. Legalization means greater economic benefits for the country. And politically, the Democrats have been promising for decades a reform that never comes.
The immigrant who awaits that solution is already cured of scares. Setbacks do not stop them from continuing to find a way to get ahead and continue to function in this society.
But this does not mean that the Democrats who claim to defend the interests of these immigrants and who for decades have counted on the political favor of those who support these immigrants through family ties or empathy, rest on their laurels and again say “it couldn’t.”
The excuse has always been that the Republican opposition has slowed down any advance; and although it is true, we have already repeated ad nauseam the previous opportunities that the Democrats have had and wasted to advance this issue.
What we lack is that the argument of the Republican opposition add that the Parliamentarian said NO.
Let’s also hope that, as in previous opportunities, the Democrats do not freeze before the worn-out Republican strategy of using immigrants as scapegoats in election year. The NO of the Parliamentarian, the rice with mango that is on the border with the arrival of thousands of Haitians, as well as the refugee crisis in Afghanistan have given the Republicans ammunition to continue wrongly linking immigration with crime. And there are always moderate and conservative democrats who flee from the issue like the devil to the cross so as not to brighten their constituents.
With control of both cameras at stake, as on previous occasions , Democrats evade thorny issues and always assure that, “if we win, we will address the issue.” Then they win and as we are always in elections, those difficult issues have been delayed for decades.
And it is not just immigration. The Parliamentarian a few months ago said NO to the gradual increase of 15 dollars to the minimum wage as part of the budget. There are also measures to face climate change and the modernization of the country’s outdated and fragile infrastructure.
These are issues supported by the faithful base of the Democratic Party that election after election goes to the polls to give them a new opportunity. It is time for those Democrats to return the favor and produce concrete results, even if the MP says no. She is not an elected official that is due to her constituencies. Democratic legislators are.
In a teleconference with pro-immigrant activists, Democratic Senator from New Jersey, Bob Menéndez, assured that the NO of the Parliamentarian went to a specific proposal and that there are others on the table that will be presented to you shortly.
He also assured that the other available options will continue to be explored.
We’ll see.