Mauricio Lopez was deported to Mexicoafter spending most of his life in the United States. Now he hopes againstthe odds that Joe Biden’s administration will let him return, reports AFP.
The 26-year-old English teacher is one of thousands of migrants known as“dreamers” who as children were taken to the US by their parents.
Like many Mexicans who were expelled, in particular under outgoingPresident Donald Trump, Lopez is hoping that President-elect Biden will pushfor changes that protect undocumented migrants.
“It would be good for us if he relaxes immigration laws … if there areasylum processes, if he makes it easier for us to obtain work permits ortourist visas, since many of us have families there,” he said.
Lopez was deported to Mexico from North Carolina in 2016 after he wasunable to renew his residency permit under the DACA program for unauthorizedimmigrants brought to the United States as children.
He was deported with his mother, leaving behind a sister but joining abrother who had already been sent back to Mexico years earlier.
Lopez is part of a growing number of deportees trying to integrate into acountry that often feels foreign to them.
Around 89,000 Mexicans were expelled from the United States in the firsthalf of this year, according to the interior ministry.
Widespread expulsions have also occurred under Democratic administrations.
About three million unauthorized immigrants were deported by formerpresident Barack Obama between 2009 and 2016, when Biden was vice president.
Biden has signaled a break with the policies of Trump, who vowed to haltalmost all immigration and expel the more than 10 million undocumentedmigrants estimated to live in the United States.
The Republican sparked anger during his 2016 election campaign when hebranded Mexican migrants “rapists” and drug dealers, and vowed to build a wall along the southern US border.
But experts say Biden may be hamstrung by a Republican-controlled Senate,depending on the result of runoffs in the state of Georgia on January 5. “Even with the best will of the new government, it (change) won’t happenimminently,” said Leticia Calderon, an expert on migration at Mexico’s Mora Institute.
The Democrat’s win should not be seen as an “invitation to migrate”because “the bad guy is leaving and now the good guys” are in the WhiteHouse, she said.
“The immigration system in the United States has no political party.”
One area where she does expect action from Biden is to try to addressrights for “Dreamers” to stay and work in the United States.
Biden fiercely criticized Trump’s moves against “Dreamers.”
“It’s likely that they will deal with it in the first 100 days ofgovernment, but it has to go through the Senate,” where it is likely to meetresistance, Calderon said.
Even if it is too late for him personally, Lopez hopes that other youngmigrants can benefit under the new administration.
“The Dreamers feel more positive with Biden. There’s hope that they have aroute to citizenship or residency,” he said.
Around 12 million people born in Mexico live in the US, as well as another26 million who have at least one parent or grandparent born on Mexican soil.
Father-of-two Ben Moreno, who has been deported from the US twice, mostrecently in 2014 during the Obama presidency, is also cautiously optimistic that things will improve.
“I honestly don’t think Biden will stop the deportations,” said the 54-year-old, who ran a construction company in Indiana.
“But what I do hope is that this administration will be fair about who itdeports and how it does it,” he said.