US advances with new immigration laws for dreamers and workers

The lower house of the United States approved two immigration laws supported by President Joe Biden, one to give a path to citizenship to dreamers undocumented young people who came to the country as minors and another for agricultural workers, although they have few options to pass in the Senate.

Amid a surge in migrant arrivals to the Mexican border, these two pieces of legislation face a complicated picture in the Senate, where they require Republican support to pass.

Both laws have strong support from Biden, who promised immigration reform to give 11 million undocumented immigrants a path to citizenship.

Biden said, many of the undocumented immigrants who would be granted status under the bills have worked tirelessly on the front lines during this pandemic to keep our country afloat, fed and healthy yet they are forced to live in fear. and uncertainty due to their immigration status.

The law to regularize the dreamers or dreamers was approved by 228 votes in favor and 197 against in the House, where the Democrats have a majority . Nine Republican lawmakers voted in favor.

The White House indicated that the law to protect the dreamers is a decisive milestone on the way to provide much needed relief to millions of undocumented people who call the United States home. And Biden had urged Congress in a tweet to find long-term solutions in order to create a "humane immigration system and address the root causes of immigration.

Steve Scalise, the head of the Republicans in the House of Representatives urged his caucus to vote against the rule, stating that it would worsen the flow of illegals to the United States.

Republican congresswoman Liz Cheney said that both laws are going to exacerbate the crisis at the border. In February, some 100,000 people were arrested on the southern border including 9,457 unaccompanied minors, a 28% increase compared to January, according to authorities.

The US authorities reported that there are currently 14,000 migrant minors in custody, 9,562 in charge of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and about 4,500 with the Border Patrol (CBP).

The history of the dreamers has been full of advances and setbacks in the last decade , without ever achieving a legislative solution for these young people, most of them Latin Americans. In 2012, Democratic President Barack Obama granted them protection status through an executive action that established Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), a decree that allowed them to study, work, drive and sheltered them from the threat of deportations. But his Republican successor Donald Trump canceled this statute, leading to a long judicial battle that ended in the Supreme Court, which ruled in 2020 against the way in which that program was annulled.

The Obama decree benefited some 700,000 young people, but currently millions of people would qualify for this regularization.

This law also contemplates giving a path to citizenship to the beneficiaries of the Temporary Protection Statute (TPS), a program that offers protection to people from countries that suffer from armed conflicts, environmental disasters such as hurricanes or earthquakes or catastrophic situations such as epidemics.

Democrats also passed a law to regularize farm workers with 274 votes in favor and 174 against. Democratic congressman Raúl Ruiz defended that these essential workers are infected and die from covid-19 at much higher rates than the general population.

He said, they literally die to feed us.

Opposition was not unanimous among Republicans, and Washington Congressman Dan Newhouse indicated during the debate that the law creates jobs and a merit-based program for foreign farm workers.

he told plenary, this removes the incentives for illegal migration.