On Tuesday, January 30th Donald Trump delivered his first State of the Union Address to a joint session of Congress in an unexpectedly disciplined manner. Sticking strictly to his teleprompter, he called for a “new American moment of unity” and challenged lawmakers to make good on long-standing promises to fix a dangerously fractured immigration system. Trump’s discourse blended self-congratulation and calls for optimism with dark warnings about deadly Latin American gangs, the scourge of opioid drugs and murderous immigrants living in the United States illegally. He portrayed the debate over immigration as a battle between heroes and villains – the Border Patrol, of course, being the heroes! As Trump spoke, tensions were running high in Congress since an impasse over immigration had just prompted a three-day government shutdown and legislators appear no closer to resolving the status of the “Dreamers” – young people who had arrived at an early age with their undocumented parents. At times, Trump’s address appeared to be aimed more at validating his first year in office than setting the course for his second. He devoted an inordinately long time to touting his tax reform law, promising that it will provide relief to the middle class and huge incentives for new corporate investments and declaring that “The era of economic surrender is totally over” (an oblique reference to the ongoing NAFTA renegotiation which he never referred to directly). This came as a tremendous relief to most observers who had feared an irrational declaration that he would unilaterally withdraw from NAFTA. The fact is that shortly after the speech, a letter signed by 36 of the 51 senators of the conservative party is published for the president trump with the purpose of maintaining the treaty instead of sabotaging it. This leads us to think that even when the negotiations are accelerated the NAFTA would continue but if the negotiations continue until next year, we would have to consider the intermediate elections where the two chambers are renewed and probably the Democrats win the majority. In case this happens, not only is a setback for Trump in the economic but also in the political because there would be very good chances of reaching an impeachment. On the other hand, tackling the sensitive immigration debate that has roiled Washington, he redoubled his recent pledge to offer legal status and a path to citizenship for 1.8 million “Dreamers” – but only as a part of a package that would also have to include a budget of 25 billion Dollars for his “great wall” along the U.S. – Mexico border, ending the nation’s visa lottery program that has benefitted 50 000 immigrants every year, reducing legal immigration by 40% and limiting family unification to only spouses and children of legal immigrants. All of that effectively means his plan is dead on arrival in Congress: most Republicans will never agree to amnesty for the “Dreamers” and none of the Democrats will vote in favor of the 25 billion Dollars to construct the border wall. The only thing, then, which is now protecting the “Dreamers” from deportation beginning in March of this year, is a Federal Court-mandated restraining order prohibiting Trump from implementing any change in their condition until a number of lawsuits have been resolved by trial – and that can easily take three to five years.
By: Dr. Juan Carlos Botello and Dr. Werner G.C. Voigt (independent external contributor)
