On Thursday morning, the Supreme Court decided by 5 to 4 to end the immigration law that forced citizens of different nationalities to wait for the asylum application process from the border in Mexico.
Residents of Sunset Park, a neighborhood with a high population of Latino immigrants, expressed opposing views:
“Many people suffer at the border, many people, a lot of lack, I have seen like this on television, that many people are in the tents and all that, without food. They live unhealthily and it seems good to me, it’s good that this has happened,” said Jesús Delgado, owner of a tortilla shop in Sunset Park.
“I think that the people who are here have to be given priority over the people who arrive, because there are many who do take advantage of it and there are many who do not take advantage of it,” said Fabiola Hernández, owner of a store and butcher shop in Sunset Park.
“For every Hispanic who arrives in the United States, they come with a dream of progressing, of doing their own business and raising the economy in one way or another (way). We are the ones who raise the countries. Here in the United States, this is good news for me,” said Pertín Vásquez, a neighbor.
In 2019, President Trump imposed the controversial program that received widespread criticism from immigrant rights advocates as those who remained at the border faced dangers such as criminal gangs in addition to inhumane conditions.
The New York Immigrant Coalition says that more than 71,000 asylum seekers, including children, seniors and people with disabilities, were sent to Mexico from January 2019 to January 2021.
“Some were assaulted and robbed, others kidnapped. It’s really impossible to overestimate the horrors that people went through as a result of this policy and the numbers and what they had to go through has been very shocking. Now the Biden administration must get it right that he is ending the program again under the terms of the Supreme Court order,” said Nicole Catá, director of immigrant rights policy, NY Immigrant Coalition.
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