Christian Carlos. Peninsula 360 Press [P360P].
On January 20, U.S. President-elect Joe Biden, who was elected in the November 3, 2020 general election, opened a door for people in the Latino community. His challenge is to reconcile the U.S. population. Achieving this within 100 days is an even bigger challenge.
Joe Biden will have to focus on the promises made to the electorate that won him the election. Among them are the modification of the 2nd amendment that allows access to arms, the change of the US Court, police abuse, the right and recognition of the LGBTTTIQ+ community and other vulnerable minorities, the payment of taxes by companies, international agreements on climate change are some of the objectives that the administration has to resolve in the coming years, but, above all, it must resolve pending issues in the area of migration.
And more recent issues in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, such as foreign policy towards countries in controversy with Donald Trump, vaccinating the U.S. population, and restoring the domestic economy to recover lost jobs; issues that end up affecting the Latino community.
Bipartisanship has caused the division of the U.S. 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 racist, xenophobic and hateful legacy towards the Latino community that has led to regrettable events in the history of the founding country of modern democracy such as the far-right insurrection as seen in the riots on Capitol Hill on January 6.
The first 100 days for President Biden's administration are complicated, as he will have to face a still tense electorate, also caused by Donald Trump, who took it upon himself, at all times, to delegitimize the results and further exacerbate the bipartisan division.
In the last days of his administration, we saw President Donald Trump oversee the border wall, which he repeatedly stated that "Mexico would pay for it," upsetting foreign relations with the southern neighboring country. Biden will also have to oversee the construction of the border wall, given that it is a project initiated and launched four years ago and that COVID-19 was unable to stop. Among one of Biden's powers that he would have once the presidential inauguration process is completed is to halt and, ideally, roll back the construction of the wall that divides Mexico from the US.
The new administration's motto, 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 so, 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 US.
A step on the diplomatic issue could decrease the cases of racial violence in the country and reduce the xenophobic acts that have 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 be a major problem for the new administration with Joe Biden in office. should not represent a major problem for the new administration with Joe Biden in the presidency, since the vaccine and the plan that contemplates the application of tens of thousands of doses per day are already in place, even less with the strong message offered by Biden a few days ago in which he urged Americans to make use of the mouth cover; however, an economic recession is coming hard around the world and the U.S. is no exception.
Hundreds of thousands of jobs have been lost due to the pandemic, many of them filled by migrant populations from the Latino community.
If Joe Biden is interested in regaining trust 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 economic recovery of the country he will have to be inclusive, mainly with the essential workers who only the disease has slowed down, and who have continued to be the pillar that has sustained the U.S. while measures were imposed to restrict the mobility of the majority 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, Joe Biden, still a Democratic candidate for the presidency, declared that he would send an immigration reform initiative to the U.S. Congress "that would offer 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 the supposed immigration reform remained as promises".
Many international media outlets, especially the international ones, have highlighted the decaying and inhumane facilities where hundreds of children are crammed together because of their immigration status. Many of them, sons and daughters of undocumented parents who have been repatriated to their places of origin and have divided entire families. This subhuman policy must be a priority and an example of change if Biden wants to differentiate himself from the administration that preceded him.
Reunification - domestic and foreign - are necessary to reverse the effects caused by Donald Trump; however, one hundred days are, at a glance, insufficient for 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 has saved the country on more than one occasion. The Biden administration has 100 days to demonstrate that the Latino community is more visible than in any other crisis in modern U.S. history.
