Democratic Convention in Chicago Addresses Immigration Issue
Democratic Convention in Chicago, U.S., Aug. 21, 2024. Photo: X/ @KamalaHQ
August 22, 2024 Hour: 9:59 am
The Democratic party platform leaned toward tougher border policies to limit the number of asylum seekers.
On Wednesday, immigration was one of the central topics at the Democratic convention in Chicago, where key party figures outlined candidate Kamala Harris’s vision for immigration policy and the situation at the Mexican border.
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Among the evening’s speakers were senators who helped negotiate a controversial immigration deal in Congress with their Republican counterparts. This deal sought to impose strict asylum restrictions at the legislative level and did not offer any pathway to legalize the more than 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the United States.
The deal did not move forward, but it is expected that the legislators will reiterate their support for it, solidifying the Democratic Party’s increasingly tough stance on immigration management.
Gone are the days of U.S. President Joe Biden’s campaign, during which he promised four years ago to restore asylum at the southern border and offer a pathway to citizenship for those living in irregular immigration situations. In the past year, Biden has issued executive orders that limit access to asylum at the border, which have been harshly criticized by human rights organizations.
The party platform approved on Monday also made this shift towards tougher border policies explicit, calling for asylum system reform that limits the number of people who can seek protection in the U.S.
In addition to the legislators, recipients of the DACA program, which was approved in 2012 under former President Barack Obama and offered legalization to more than half a million migrants who arrived in the U.S. irregularly as minors, will also take the stage at the convention.
The pressure of the November 5th electoral contest against Republican candidate Donald Trump, who has doubled down on his xenophobic ideas in this campaign, has pushed the Democratic administration to take increasingly restrictive measures to limit the arrival of people at the southern border.
These measures, along with close collaboration with Mexico to block routes and detain migrants, have caused the number of irregular crossings to drop to its lowest point in four years. The monthly figure of detentions at the border is reported by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection and is used in the U.S. to make decisions and measure the effectiveness of immigration policies.
According to polls, immigration management is one of the issues that most concerns voters ahead of the presidential election, and anti-immigrant rhetoric permeated nearly the entirety of the Republican National Convention in July.
teleSUR/ JF Source: EFE
