After 4 years of Trump in office, after 4 years of harsh immigration policies, after 4 years of scapegoating migrants from Central and South America as ‘rapists’, drug lords and criminals, Biden’s job is to undo the damage Trump has made. It’s a big ask of any president, to reverse Trumpism that has grasped the nation and erase any memory of such harsh and callous immigration policies, but it has to be done. It is being done, but some are still not happy.
A centrepiece of Biden’s offer to America in his running for Office was a softer and more humane approach on immigration and in his first few weeks in Office, he has already reshaped policies and proposed three executive actions; border/entry policy, interior enforcement, bureaucratic organization (these I will explain later). But, the first thing Biden has begun to do is rewrite the narrative that Trump and the media fed the nation for almost 5 years.
Trump has said a lot of demeaning and discriminatory things in his time as president, but I think we all remember when Trump claimed
“When Mexico sends its people, they're not sending their best. They're not sending you. They're sending people that have lots of problems, and they're bringing those problems. ...They're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They're rapists. And some, I assume, are good people."
I won’t dwell on Trump’s rhetoric (my blog piece entitled ‘When words trump morals; an insight into Trumpism in the Trump era and beyond’ talks more about Trump’s language if you’re interested) but it's clear that this demeaning and skewed picture he painted allowed for such cruel anti-immigration tactics to be widely accepted by Americans. This narrative convinced the public and members of congress that closing borders, denying refugees and asylum seekers entry, overcrowding detention facilities, keeping vulnerable people, oftentimes children, in inhumane conditions, locking children in cages, separating families and using aggressive enforcement, was correct. This acceptance allowed Trump’s executive action to be so callous, but Biden is beginning to change that.
Reversing border/entry policy
In short, Biden has re-directed funding that the Trump administration flooded into the Department of Defence, which used money for border construction. This has limited the construction of new border walls. He also established an order to provide a ‘safer’ and ‘orderly’ process into America, which to many is a Promised Land, for asylum seekers - for those people who are fleeing from political violence and persecution in mainly Central America.
There is a massive humanitarian crisis happening in most parts of Central America and Mexico, with increasing violence it’s unsafe for many families to remain in their homes and therefore seeking asylum, a right all humans have, is hopefully becoming less of a ‘life or death’ situation. The fact that seeking asylum became so risky under Trump, and even in many other Western countries, and the mere travel from Central America to America’s southern border that often takes weeks or even a month is life-threatening, shows how immoral these migration policies were. To then, after travelling through extraneous heat, little food and water and wearing the same shoes and clothes for weeks, be denied the human right to seek asylum highlights that these policies were inhumane. Even though under Biden I hope the actual process of entering the States becomes less life threatening, thousands of people are still migrating in these conditions, and in a pandemic. But, even though Biden is working to allow more humane immigration, it doesn’t stop the fact that America is dealing with an overwhelming number of migrants. Through this executive order, Biden’s administration has begun to focus on the root causes of why people are migrating.
Why is there a migration surge?
A lot of American’s are unhappy with Biden’s work because there has been a ‘migration surge’ in the last few months at the Southern border. Biden himself urged ‘Don't leave your town or city or community’, but with Trump out of the picture, some question shouldn't migration be easier? A lot of people blame his softer policies as the reason why thousands of Central Americans are fleeing their countries. This is all misinformation and it needs to be stopped
A 'Climate Migration' Crisis
The global climate emergency has affected every person on this planet. Ice caps are melting, forests are burning, we’re dealing with extreme weather conditions, drought, flooding, earthquakes, the list goes on. And especially for those in less economically developed countries, the climate crisis is forcing people to leave their homes and seek refuge in America. It’s no surprise with little action taken by global leaders and huge companies to stop the climate crisis, countries in Central America and people living there will continue to suffer.
In Honduras, there were two deadly hurricanes last year within two weeks of each other which left approximately nine million of Hondurans without crops, without houses and without money. Not coincidentally, Honduras and neighbouring Guatemala have accounted for most of the people being displaced and migrating to the U.S. With the pandemic and ongoing climate change on top of political corruption and gang violence, it’s no wonder millions of people are migrating.
After ‘Earth Day’ on Thursday 22nd April, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees published data showing that because of climate change, poverty, hunger, access to natural resources and violence worsens.
What's it to us?
We can’t feel it. We’re not affected, wearing rose tinted glasses and sheltered in our bubbles of first world privilege. Those in the UK are second to least likely to feel the effects of climate change, while others are forced to leave their homes, trek and travel across borders and then get turned back. In fact, as of 21 March, US Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) agents were holding more than 15,500 unaccompanied children in custody, according to various US media outlets. This happened after 9,500 unaccompanied children were detained by American officials at the border and sent back to the countries they came from, mainly Mexico and neighbouring countries, in February.
The idea of 'walking in someone else's shoes' has never been more applicable than now, when we desperately need more people to feel empathy, more people to care, more people to take action to stop climate change. It's been said a million times before but we, as humanity, need to work harder. I've read articles and posts about how we can't tackle climate change as individuals, that while you might recycle, you might cut down on meat and dairy consumption (or be totally vegetarian or vegan), you might cut out single use plastic, boycott fast fashion (which everyone should be doing in my opinion) the list can go on, what we need is global government agreements like that of the UN Paris Climate Crisis conference.
The problem with this is all governmental action is future propositions, things that are going to happening. Biden's future plans as president heavily involve tackling the climate crisis, which is a good sign. With Democrats gaining control of both the House and Senate, the Biden administration may also have a better chance of overhauling laws, funding and tax incentives in ways that could fundamentally transform America's approach to climate change.
As someone who is naturally pessimistic, especially when I feel part of the problem (I could definitely do more for the climate aside from the basics - donating to Greenpeace, cutting out meat, dairy, cutting down on single use plastic, etc.) it's important to stay optimistic and cautious about the future for this planet. It's scary to think that maybe Biden will surprise us and actually make radical change for America, one of the largest contributors to climate change. If not, we'll end up like the humans from Wall-E, which is equally as scary.
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