This has been a dark time for immigrants. Every day more and more laws, regulations and policies. This new stance toward Latino immigrants is now not only focused on illegal immigration but on making it more difficult for legal immigrants and on punishing the people from the countries that they find undesirable. Although as Latino’s our culture, food, and labor are often praised, sought after and incorporated into mainstream American culture it seems more and more that “we the people” are being accepted less and less by those in power.
Below is a list of recent actions that show how this current administration is attacking both legal and illegal immigration in the United States.
- Closing international U.S.C.I.S offices in countries like Mexico, China, and others.
- Threatening to Withhold financial aid from countries like Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador.
- Threatening to Close the border with Mexico.
- Making green card in-person interviews mandatory.
These recent steps will make legal immigration more difficult by closing the offices that interview and process applications from abroad, help with refugee resettlement, and provide travel documents and other services that allow people to enter the united states. It also serves to strip funding that helps the vulnerable populations of those countries making the quality of life even worse in some of the most dangerous places in the world.
These moves will undoubtedly increase the backlog for immigrants and refugees who desire to enter the country legally. In the last year even legal naturalizations, Muslim refugees and green card approvals have gone down. Now with moves to punish countries whose people flee to the United States, we are sending a clear message to the World that America is no longer a nation of immigrants.
Meanwhile, as hundreds of thousands of people’s lives are set to get worse the mainstream media is worried about how fast the U.S. will run out of avocados…. because getting extra guacamole is more of a concern than the people who make the food.
By Abraham Cepeda
Cultura Law
