Immigrants in US both hopeful and wary of Joe Biden

GBNEWS24 DESK//

Immigrants in the United States await Joe Biden’s presidency with a mix of hope and wariness – he spells relief after four years of tough restrictions under Donald Trump, but he served as vice president under Barack Obama, whom many referred to as “the deporter in chief,” reports AFP from Washington.

On the surface, Biden is making the right noises.

Gabriela Hernandez, a 22-year-old who came to the US from El Salvador at age five with her mother, says she is “not too big of a fan” of the next president – but she is “pretty optimistic that this administration is going to try to work with us”.

For a start, Biden has promised a path to citizenship for the roughly 11 million people living in the US without authorisation.

He also supports immigrant protection programmes that Trump tried to kill off, such as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (Daca), which gave people brought to the US without papers as children protection from deportation and permission to work.

Instituted by Obama in 2012, Daca covers some 700,000 people known as Dreamers. For many, America is the only country they have ever known.

Trump in 2017 tried to dismantle the programme on grounds that it is unconstitutional, triggering a lengthy court battle. Daca survived – but the Department of Homeland Security reinstated it only partially.

Biden has vowed to restore the programme when he takes office in January, though he needs the support of Congress to do so – and with control of the Senate up for grabs due to January 5 run-off elections in Georgia, that support is in question.

Even if he succeeds, Daca itself is only a “band-aid,” said Hernandez, a beneficiary of the programme.

“Daca kind of puts this little umbrella over a little population of millions,” she said.

And Daca is just the beginning.