By Felicia J. Persaud
News Americas, FORT LAUDERDALE, Fl, Fri. April 28, 2023: Immigration again looks set to take center stage in next year’s general elections asthe GOP ploughs ahead with hardnosed plans going nowhere and New York City Mayor Eric Adams along with NYC lawmakers takes a jab at the Joe Biden administration on asylum seekers as May 11 approaches – the day Title 42 is expected to be lifted.
What else is new? As another silly season comes around, immigration is still the issue at the top of the agenda according to most polls. And as usual, politicians on both sides of the aisle are continuing to present their plans on the hot button issue. House Republicans released sweeping immigration legislation recently that would tighten asylum eligibility, expand migrant family detention and crack down on the employment of undocumented workers.
The 137-page proposed bill represents the legislative response to high levels of migration on the U.S.-Mexico border from House Republicans, who have made border security a focal point of their new majority. But it’s highly unlikely to make it into law.
On the left, Democratic Mayor, Eric Adams, and other New York City officials demanded that the White House back New York with concrete plans to support asylum seekers in the coming months in what is the most sternly worded rebuke of the federal government yet.
“Our national government has abandoned this city,” Adams said at a press conference on Wednesday, April 19th at City Hall. “Everything we fought for is in jeopardy if we don’t get this right.”
Mayor Adams is calling on the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to re-designate Temporary Protected Status, (TPS), for migrants coming from Venezuela, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Sudan, South Sudan, and Cameroon, to expand access to humanitarian parole for newly arriving asylum seekers and asylum seekers already in the United States, and to increase the number of and reassign existing U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, (USCIS), officers to reduce application processing times. He said all of these actions can immediately be taken by the executive branch of the federal government and without legislation being passed by Republican leaders in Congress who refuse to offer any support for the ongoing crisis.
Caribbean American Congresswoman Yvette Clarke also weighed in noting: “Given the partisan climate created by Republicans – it’s time the administration takes the necessary steps to expedite work authorization for asylum seekers.”
No word from the White House or Vice President and immigration czar Kamala Harris on the criticism but Harris was in Miami on April 21st to talk about climate change.
Fifty-eight percent of voters in seven key Electoral College battleground states disapprove of how the president is handling immigration, compared with 32 percent who approve, according to a new swing-state poll from Global Strategy Group first shared with POLITICO. And a majority of voters surveyed, at 52 percent, believe Biden is ignoring problems at the border, while 50 percent said the president is ignoring the situation around undocumented immigrants.
Making the issue again top of the election agenda for 2024. No surprise there!
The writer is publisher of NewsAmericasNow.com – The Black Immigrant Daily News.
