FILE – Migrants who crossed the Rio Grande and entered the U.S. from Mexico are lined up for processing by U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Sept. 23, 2023, in Eagle Pass, Texas. As the number of migrants coming to the U.S.’s southern border is climbing, the Biden administration aims to admit more refugees from Latin America and the Caribbean over the next year. The White House Friday, Sept. 29, released the targets for how many refugees it aims to admit over the next fiscal year starting October 1 and from what regions of the world. (AP Photo/Eric Gay, File)
NORTH DAKOTA (KXNET) — As people across the world fight for freedom, the land many wish to escape to is our very own.
There are two sides to the issue: should they be able to come and live in our nation, or not?
President Biden has called on Congress to pass comprehensive immigration reform since his first day in office. But what this looks like is still a mystery.
In Friday night’s political panel, we hear two different sides of the argument.
First, should the United States build a wall along the southern border?
“I guess I believe in people coming through the door, not climbing through the window. So I think we’d be safer, and I actually think the people coming in would be better off if we had a wall, where people came in through the door,” said Rep. Jeff Hoverson.
As for our democratic leaders, they say our nation can be the help for those in need, there just needs to be a balance in doing so.
“My response is it’s been proven time and time again that building a structure doesn’t keep people out. It’s the policies that we have in place in both our country as well as our foreign relations. And what we’re continuing to see is a failure of Congress to act on legal immigration that allows people to come here to live and work in a way with dignity and at the same time not addressing the issues in specifically South American countries in which you know dictators and authoritarian rule is taking over and people are trying to flee that type of government so that they can come to a better lifestyle here,” said Rep. Josh Boschee.
But what about healthcare for immigrants? Should illegal immigrants have access to government-subsidized healthcare?
“The only reason I’ve gone twice is because I actually agree with what Josh had to say, and that would be the policy, and we may differ on this, but I think we need to lower the incentives to come here. I don’t know why we would do that, you know, why we would want to incentivize people monetarily for coming to our country. I don’t know of any country that that would be a wise thing to do,” said Rep. Jeff Hoverson.
“I think you’ll find that many legal immigrants are taxpaying residents of our country and so if they don’t meet certain income requirements they may qualify for certain subsidies for health care but we know that they are contributing certain subsidies for health care but we know that they are contributing members of our society by being members of our workforce,” said Rep. Josh Boschee.
At the moment, the Biden Administration says it’s granting temporary legal status to hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans, who are already in the country, quickly making them eligible to work.
Democrats also want more pathways to citizenship and refugee visas for many along our southern border. But for Republicans, a lax border is not a sign of strength, but weakness, especially for our adversaries.
The Department of Homeland Security plans to grant Temporary Protected Status to an estimated 472,000 Venezuelans who arrived in the country as of July 31, making it easier for them to get authorization to work in the U.S.
That’s in addition to about 242,000 Venezuelans who already qualified for temporary status before the initial announcement in late September.
