U.S. Senate Rejects New Immigration Bill

By Guillermo Alvarado

The President of the United States, Joseph Biden, received a hard setback when the Senate rejected an agreement negotiated for months by Democrats and Republicans aimed at toughening conditions for migrants at the southern border, as never seen before.

The reasons for the failure do not lie in the fact that the legislators have considered the measures against those who aspire to enter the northern power to be excessive; on the contrary, it is because the so-called Republican "hard wing", pushed by former President Donald Trump, considers them insufficient.

In reality, the main problem for this type of agreement is that it came to be discussed in the middle of an election year, when each party is trying to take as much water as possible to its mill and migrants become hostages of petty political interests.

What the text essentially proposed was to create a special border authority that would be activated if the number of people crossing along the extensive border with Mexico exceeds an average of between 4,000 and 8,500 in a day.

On the other hand, those crossing without documents above the first figure would not be eligible for asylum in that country.

Regarding this last point, that of asylum, the level of requirements to pass the initial examination has been raised, which makes it practically impossible for most applicants.

There are also severe restrictions on granting humanitarian permits or pathways to naturalization, with some exceptions that obey political interests of the northern power with respect to certain nationalities.Notwithstanding the harshness of these measures, they seem insufficient to Trump and he called on his supporters in the parliamentary chamber, who are not few, to torpedo the agreement and, incidentally, to cause a stumble to the one who is pointed out as his future rival in the dispute for the White House.

But that is not all, as it turns out that the immigration issue was accompanied by a package of financial assistance for foreign countries, including military aid to Ukraine and Israel, two strong allies and protégés of Biden, who was left in an uncomfortable position at least before his "friends".It is not, of course, that the Republican Party and conservative Democrats are against the Netanyahu regime and Palestinian genocide, far from it, but it is all part of a system of mutual blackmail, which is how politics works in the United States.Very few in Washington care about the lives of migrants or Palestinians, intent as they are on maintaining their privileges at all costs.