Photo: John Moore/Getty Images
For: Maribel Hastings and David Torres Posted 24 Jan 2023, 18:33 pm EST
The Republican “border security” plan stalled in the House is so extreme that even some members of that party have denounced that it jeopardizes the asylum laws of a nation that, historically, has prided itself on opening its arms to those who seek refuge for various circumstances.
As if the obstacles in the current asylum process were not enough, the author of the HR 29 project, the Republican congressman from Texas, Chip Roy, seeks to grant the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) the power to prohibit the entry of migrants at any point of entry into the country. This means that asylum seekers with credible claims could not even try. Some Republicans have voiced opposition to Roy’s bill, including Tony Gonzales of Texas and Cuban-American Congresswoman Maria Elvira Salazar of Florida, who believe it undermines asylum laws.
Taking into account that it has been the Republican Party that has become the executor of the worst anti-immigrant policies in recent years, it only remains to conclude that this will be the beginning of a new barrage of attacks with an eye fixed on 2024, and that although Roy’s project is causing a certain sting among some of his own, the truth is that the white nationalist machine intends to overwhelm whoever stands in front of it, even if they are their own supporters.
On the other hand, although the Joe Biden administration established a process to try to bring order to the migration of citizens from Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua and Haiti, so that they can request asylum without trying to reach the borders irregularly, the reality is that asylum is a relief sought by thousands of human beings of various nationalities.
In other words, asylum is not about a political issue that a Congress or a government should accept or not, according to their partisan and ideological calculations, but rather it has to do with a human rights issue that cannot be evaded, especially all before the massive displacement of human beings fleeing various situations that endanger their lives and integrity, as well as those of their families.
In Puerto Rico, for example, almost weekly there are cases that make the skin of the toughest stand on end. Migrants from Haiti, the Dominican Republic and other nations near and far are victims of traffickers who, after charging them thousands of dollars for the dangerous journey to try to reach the shores of a US territory, abandon them to their fate on the most small islands that make up the archipelago that is Puerto Rico. Islands like Mona, Monito and Desecheo. Other traffickers bring them closer to the coast and throw them into the sea as bait, resulting in the drowning of even months-old babies. And not even remember the case of the Haitians who, on the journey to Puerto Rico, saw their babies die and then be thrown into the sea and eaten by sharks, according to one of the stories.
In other words, those who decide to run all these risks do not do so out of a frivolous desire to change their environment. They do not leave their country with the idea of having a picnic or in order to “tour the world” like those who have the economic opportunity to do so and boast of it. There are urgent and real reasons that lead hundreds of thousands to risk their lives, and that is something that the Republicans who now control the Lower House do not want to understand, thus demonstrating their human misery and their permanent attitude of rejection towards the other, the helpless, the one who needs urgent help.
In their eagerness to fulfill their promise to close the border and return to the zero-tolerance policy implemented by Donald Trump, these Republicans propose that no one have the right to seek asylum. That egoism of which they have made their own trademark has led them through intricate political labyrinths that today have them in the crosshairs of the judgment of history.
For now, the Republicans have already turned their guns on the DHS secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas, with the intention of removing him, even if the process has the effect of endangering the security of the country, as a recent report by America’s Voice concluded.
They also plan border hearings sponsored by Republican lawmakers who shamelessly espouse white nationalist conspiracy theories. This panorama becomes more discouraging when we see the Democrats take a step forward and a thousand steps back on the immigration issue, without still fulfilling what they promised in the campaign. And in the midst of all this, thousands and thousands of immigrant families trying to re-accommodate themselves in a society, whose political system still considers them a kind of “hunting ground” during election season.
Roy’s project is a litmus test for Republican leaders who seem to continue betting on extremism and political theater, even if it continues to cost them a lot at the electoral level.