The Plight of Illegal Immigrants in 2020

President Trump has always been known for his strong views on fighting illegal immigration. Democratic candidate Julian Castro spoke in favor of decriminalizing illegal immigration. Sen. Bernie Sanders is pushing for the expansion of DACA and wants to offer legal status to immigrants brought to the country illegally as children. Other strong Democratic candidates such as Joe Biden and Sen. Michael Bennet support a government-funded healthcare plan that would cover undocumented migrants. Trump expressed his dissatisfaction with this view by tweeting that the Democrats want to give out unlimited healthcare to millions to illegal immigrants and that American citizens should be first taken care of.

A lot of Democratic candidates have come out to support the elimination of criminal penalties for entering the country illegally. Some candidates have explicitly called to repeal Section 1325 of Title 8 of the U.S. Code, which makes crossing the border without undergoing an inspection by an immigration officer a misdemeanor offense.

The Trump administration used the law to justify separating families under its zero-tolerance border strategy, which tore apart thousands of families in the spring of 2018. Under the policy, adults were charged with illegal entry and detained for prosecution. They were forcibly separated from their children, who were labeled “unaccompanied.” While a few Democrats have argued for the repeal of the illegal entry statute as the most direct means of quashing Trump’s hard-line immigration agenda, others don’t support decriminalization.

President Trump moved in 2017 to rule out the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which provides deportation relief and work permits to undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. as children. Trump’s decision — temporarily blocked by federal courts — left the status of almost 700,000 “Dreamers” in a Catch 22.

Democrats severely criticized the step and will likely fight back with their own proposals and plans to provide a pathway to citizenship for DACA recipients and a broader pool of undocumented immigrants.

• Joe Biden has promised to protect the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program and re-evaluate Temporary Protected Status (TPS) programs. Biden states that TPS holders “who have been in the country for an extended period of time and built lives” in the United States will be given a path to citizenship. TPS holders include citizens from Haiti, El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Honduras.
• Biden wants to build a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants by passing legislation who register with authorities, are compliant on their taxes, and pass background checks. He would even permit cities and counties to petition for additional visas to bolster economic development.
• He would increase the U.S. annual global refugee admissions cap sevenfold to 125,000 from the 2020 fiscal year limit of 18,000 to a little above the highest Obama cap of 110,000.
• Biden proposes setting aside a four-year, $4-billion aid package for Central America, making the aid dependent on factors, including reductions in gender-based and gang violence, improvements in education, and the implementation of anti-corruption measures.

Conclusion

With hundreds and thousands of families separated and fate undecided, we need robust legislation that would take into account the welfare of these immigrants and the growth of the nation’s productivity.