Christian Carlos. Peninsula 360 Press [P360P].
On January 20, U.S. President-elect Joe Biden, who was elected on the November 3, 2020 general election, opened a door for people in the Latino community. His challenge is to reconcile the American people. Achieving it within 100 days is an even greater challenge.
Joe Biden should focus on the promises made to the electorate that won him the election. These include the amendment to the 2nd amendment allowing access to weapons, the change of the US Court, police abuse, the right and recognition of LGBTTTIQ+ people - and other vulnerable minorities -, the payment of taxes by companies, international agreements on climate change are some of the goals the administration has to resolve in the coming years, but above all it has to resolve outstanding issues on migration.
And more recent issues in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, such as foreign policy toward countries in dispute with Donald Trump, vaccination of the U.S. population, and restoration of the domestic economy to regain lost jobs; issues that end up affecting the Latino community.
The bipartisanship has caused the division of the United States and one of the first presidential actions expected with the arrival of Biden to the Oval Office of the White House, is to unite its population. "One country united" is the motto of the new administration that has the legacy of Donald Trump.
Biden's inauguration is overshadowed by the legacy of racism, xenophobia and hatred of the Latino community that has led to such unfortunate events in the history of the country that founded modern democracy as the far-right insurrection seen in the January 6 riots on Capitol Hill.
The first 100 days of President Biden's administration are complicated, as he will have to deal with a still tense electorate, also caused by Donald Trump, who was responsible, at all times, for delegitimizing the results and further exacerbating the bipartisan divide.
In the last days of his administration, we saw President Donald Trump overseeing the border fence who repeatedly stated that "Mexico would pay for it," which altered foreign relations with the southern neighbor. Biden will also have to supervise the construction of the border fence, given that it is a project that was initiated and implemented four years ago and that COVID-19 was unable to stop. One of Biden's powers that he would have once the presidential inauguration process is to stop and, at best, reverse the construction of the wall that divides Mexico from the United States.
The motto of the new administration, as we saw, will be carried out at home, not abroad; an important priority, no doubt. But it is also essential to control the issue of foreign relations with those countries with which Trump has found ways to discredit. To do this, Biden will have to show his people a good relationship between countries with trade agreements, including China and Mexico, the country of origin of millions of immigrants living in the United States.
One step in diplomacy can decrease the cases of racial violence in the country and reduce the xenophobic acts that intensified in the four years of Trumpism.
SARS-CoV-2, the new coronavirus that causes COVID-19 disease -- and which Trump has referred to as "the Chinese virus" -- should not pose a major problem for the new administration with Joe Biden in office, as the vaccine and plan are already in place that calls for tens of thousands of doses per day, even less so with the strong message Biden offered a few days ago urging Americans to use the coverall; however, an economic downturn is coming around the world and the U.S. However, a worldwide economic recession is coming, and the US is no exception.
Hundreds of thousands of jobs have been lost due to the pandemic, many of them occupied by the migrant population of the Latino community.
If Joe Biden is interested in regaining confidence within the Latino community, he will have to continue with the discourse that the U.S. is an example of opportunity for all its inhabitants; both in the vaccination plan and in the country's economic recovery, he will have to be inclusive, mainly, with the essential workers who only the disease has stopped, and who have continued to be the pillar that has sustained the U.S. while restricting the mobility of most of the inhabitants.
Joe Biden's recognition of essential workers is an acknowledgement of the work of the Latino community, a recognition necessary to alleviate confrontations over xenophobia and racism.
On October 22, 2020, still Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden declared that he would send an immigration reform initiative to the U.S. Congress "that would provide a path to U.S. citizenship for those 11 million undocumented immigrants who contribute so much to the country. Manuel Ortiz points out that "similar words were expressed, at the time, by Barack Obama, but that the supposed immigration reform remained in promises".
Many international media, especially international media, have highlighted the decadent and inhumane facilities where hundreds of children are crowded together because of their immigration status. Many of them are the sons and daughters of undocumented parents who have been repatriated to their places of origin and who have divided entire families. This subhuman policy must be a priority and an example of change if Biden is to differentiate itself from the administration that preceded it.
Reunification-interior and exterior-is necessary to reverse the effects caused by Donald Trump; however, one hundred days are, at sight, insufficient this single goal if we add the diplomatic factor, the pandemic factor, the recovery of lost jobs for the Latino community and the application of doses of the COVID-19 vaccine to essential workers, the Latino engine that saved the country on more than one occasion. One hundred days of the Biden administration to show that the Latino community is more visible than in any other crisis in modern U.S. history.
