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The southern border of the United States is overwhelmed by Democrat immigration policies, as hundreds of thousands of people have been mobilized in buses, trucks, and other means, provided by Mexican coyotes, to transport migrants to U.S. territory.
The procedure carried out in the last few months hasn’t been the one usually seen in Hollywood movies. Many people are not crossing the border illegally to settle in the country without documentation, what they are doing, instead, is turning themselves in to the authorities and requesting political asylum. Given the lack of resources, space at checkpoints, judges, and border agents to control the mass of migrants, people are being released into U.S. territory in a matter of days.
In the last few days, I spoke with two people who crossed the southern border and turned themselves in to the authorities, they came from Venezuela. They traveled to Mexico City and from there, they made road trips to the north of the country, more precisely to the state of Sonora which borders Arizona. One of them was detained for five days. He was later released and began his journey to the city of Louisville in Kentucky, where one of his relatives lives.
Three weeks later the same trip was undertaken by his partner. He followed the same protocol until arriving in Mexico City and moving to the border. In his case, he was only detained for one day and then he was released to go meet his boyfriend. Presumably the second one took less time in detention than the first one for two reasons: the first is that he is obese and given the lack of sanitary conditions the authorities are avoiding keeping this group of people in detention to avoid medical complications due to coronavirus, and another factor is his homosexuality. Currently people belonging to the LGTB community would be receiving preferential treatment from the country’s immigration authorities.
The first of the interviewees, who chose to speak anonymously so as not to hinder his court case told El American: “I didn’t receive bad treatment from the U.S. authorities, they were at all times very respectful and I received three meals, but the conditions were difficult, the people were overcrowded in the facilities.”
The discourse since the Democratic Administration took power has been quite prone to encourage illegal migration to the country, this has caused a huge number of people to have moved in recent weeks to the American border seeking to be admitted by the immigration system. Here are several aspects that can be read about this new policy of the blue party, which beyond allowing a group of people to achieve “the American dream”, has to do with the political and demographic calculations made by the American left in the face of future federal elections.
While in the last elections the support of the Latino community for the Republican Party, and more precisely, for former President Donald Trump grew in percentage terms, the majority of Hispanics fervently support the Democratic Party, in the last presidential elections despite Trump’s growth, only 32% leaned towards the GOP, which means that almost 70% of this population continues to vote blue.
The equation for the Democrats is quite simple, despite the fact that the majority of Cubans and Venezuelans settled in Florida have sided with the Republicans because of their anti-socialist policies inside and outside the United States, Mexicans, a community that represents 59% of the Latino vote in the country is overwhelmingly Democratic. According to data collected by Pew Research in 2016, the Latino vote is composed as follows: 59% Mexicans, 14% Puerto Ricans, 5% Cubans, and 22% of other Hispanic origins, among these, the Venezuelan community is one of the smallest with the right to vote.
Recently, Democrats have proposed to elaborate a direct path to citizenship for illegal immigrants. This procedure could take about eight years and provide voting rights to approximately 11 to 20 million people. If the current trend continues, the Democratic Party could capitalize at least 7 out of 10 new voters, which would be enough to definitively overturn the elections in states such as Florida and Texas: this would be the definitive blow to end the hopes of a Republican candidate returning to the White House.
Nationalizing potential voters
In 2004 in Venezuela, the then socialist president, Hugo Chávez, took the initiative to open a process to nationalize illegal residents in the country, at that time it was estimated that between 2 and 4 million Colombians could benefit from Chavismo’s policies. Finally hundreds of thousands of Colombians were nationalized. Although the exact figure was never known, Chavismo strengthened its electoral mass at a time when polls showed less than 50% approval and the then President was about to face a recall referendum; the rest of the story is known to all, today the United Socialist Party of Venezuela continues in power having transformed itself into a tyranny presided by Nicolás Maduro, the successor chosen by Chávez before his death.
At present, far from analyzing the opportune or inopportune nature of the immigration policies promoted today by the Democrats, the political incentive behind them cannot be left aside, the ratio of 7 to 3 is quite promising, and if we add that many of the migrants will understand their immigration status as a favor from the blue party, well, it is remarkably sound business.
In view of this, the Republican Party should also react and make a statement, since the United States is a country of immigrants, the anti-immigration extremists will do the party a favor if they remain silent. In short, it’s not about opposing migration in the country of opportunities, it is about asking for sensible procedures and legislation so that the entry is done through regular channels, and the southern border of the country does not become the new multi-million dollar business of Mexican coyotes profiting from human trafficking.
The crisis at the southern border, with hundreds of thousands of people entering daily, without even being able to thoroughly check the background of each one of them, and without minimum sanitary measures, not only affects national security, and will increase crime rates on both sides of the border, but will also become a political weapon to push more and more for a welfare state in America.
Only weeks into the Biden Administration, the disaster at the southern border is no accident, and it is precisely that element that the red party must take into account: nothing of what is happening has been the product of a mistake or mismanagement, everything has been coldly calculated, and if the GOP does not articulate itself to face this new crisis with sensible policies, it can say goodbye to the presidency for decades to come.
Emmanuel Rincón is a lawyer, writer, novelist and essayist. He has won several international literary awards. He is Editor-at-large at El American // Emmanuel Rincón es abogado, escritor, novelista y ensayista. Ganador de diversos premios literarios internacionales. Es editor-at-large en El American