A narrative is growing around the idea that President Joe Biden (and, therefore, the Democratic Party) lost significant ground among Latino voters, especially in South Florida. That story, however, does not fully explain movements in the electorate. When you look at the data, there are some misconstructions that demand clarification.

First, it bears repeating that Latinos are not monolithic. The degree to which they are cross-cut by national origin, political ideology, generations, gender, education, religion and race requires a complex approach to decode this key voter constituency.

Biden's performance in Miami-Dade County among Latino voters has been called an earthquake. While it was poorer than expected, it wasn't that bad. Alarm bells that went off before Election Day were based on early voting and ballot returns.

Moreover, according to Biden's campaign manager, this final result was not so much a deficit of Latino votes as it was an increase in support for Donald Trump among Cuban Americans, with a turnout of 55 percent. Despite that, the Republican incumbent still fell short of winning the majority of the Latino vote, nationally.

Furthermore, other data suggests that losses among Latinos did not determine the outcome of the election. According to Matt Barreto and Kevin Munoz, there was a shift among the electorate, where Trump made gains beyond the Latino/Hispanic electorate in Miami-Dade. Still, there is little mention of the fact that Democrats experienced a net increase in votes due to Puerto Rican turnout in Central Florida.

The question remains: why did voters who were opposed to Trump's immigration policies offer such strong support. The answer is that Cuban Americans (along with the less quantitatively significant Venezuelan Americans) were persuaded by Trump's fake war against "socialism," with the help by a powerful media outreach, both in English and Spanish-speaking broadcasting, that targeted Cuban- and Venezuelan-American voters. The fear-mongering was a critical part of the Trump campaign.

It goes without saying the Trump campaign crafted a message based on lies about nonexistent socialism. At the same time, however, this situation underscores the contradictions of the complex Cuban-American electorate, which has in the past supported raising taxes on the rich, low-cost education, the Affordable Care Act, other policies considered to be more left-leaning. So … why did they vote for Trump?

There are two important factors to consider at this point: religion and race.

The predominantly Catholic Latino vote has been historically associated with the Democratic Party though it has seen a drop in the last decade. Among Republicans, there has been steady support from Catholics and Protestants, though with more recent signs of a stagnation from the Latino-Protestant cluster, leading to the interpretation of secularization among the Hispanic/Latino population.

This somewhat explains the appeal of Donald Trump among Latinos, Catholics and, especially, Evangelicals, but it is also falsely rooted in presenting Trump as an anti-abortion hero against Biden, who is not only a practicing Catholic, but is personally opposed to abortion while being pro-choice and pro-reproductive rights.

Finally, the racial debate among Latino/Hispanics can get contentious, especially when one has been culturally trained to ignore it. This certainly applies to foreign-born Latino/Hispanics who adapted to continuous s inquiries about their race. Some indicators suggest that the framing of Latino/Hispanics as not being American causes negative reactions among those who have been in the United States for generations, with evidence of a decline in their identification as Latino/Hispanic. In those cases, they still check "Hispanic" on government forms, but they identify as white.

This is a critical aspect of the conversation that is often swept under the rug. The Latino/Hispanic racial debate is basically nonexistent, because we are culturally detached from it. It does not mean that there are no racial tensions, but they are rather treated as social disparities. The challenge presented by a system that is constantly reminding people they are different from the cultural majority, and that they belong to a minority, pushes many of those who feel outcast to join the majority.

There will certainly come a time when Latinos reckon with intra-racism. The fact that assimilation implies dealing with identity has an impact on electoral behavior, and with many Hispanics identifying mostly as white, this is a wake-up call for the Democrats. They need to understand these nuances to properly address them, and most important of all, prevent electoral manipulation of their constituents.

United States Senator Ron Johnson said recently that he wasn't scared when, on January 6, armed insurgents sacked and looted the United States Capitol. They "love this country," the Wisconsin Republican said. But "had the tables been turned and President Trump won the election and tens of thousands of Black Lives Matter and antifa [stormed the seat of government], I might have been a little concerned."

That statement was disturbing not only for the implicit racism it carried, but for the stunning confirmation of what's becoming clear to those of us who are paying attention. The Republican Party has a paramilitary problem, and it isn't new.

During his 2016 campaign, Donald Trump alleged, without proof, that the electoral system was fraudulent, raising concerns about the impact that his false accusations would have in the event of his defeat. His unexpected victory opened the door to the far-right fringe and legitimized efforts that contributed to strengthening the ties between them. Many feared that this close relationship would be critical in the 2020 presidential election cycle, with rising domestic tensions and the role that paramilitaries would play in addition to Trump's false claims about the election.

It has been clear for some time now that the Republican Party had a more-than-welcoming attitude toward certain paramilitary groups. The deadly events in Charlottesville in 2017, although fundamentally led by white supremacists called by the former president "very fine people," also had protectionservicesprovided by paramilitaries. The following year, more signs of backing for their man in the White House came from Trump-supporting paramilitary groups targeting Muslims. In Oregon, a walkout staged by Republican state senators, in 2019, gained support from paramilitary groups that made credible threats against a planned rally.

For almost three decades, these paramilitaries (thought to be in the hundreds across the country) have viewed the government as the adversary. With a friend residing in the White House, however, these groups experienced an identity crisis. This need for an enemy explains the shift into targeting immigrants and religious minorities. It wasn't just to please their man. It was to embrace a cause allowing them to grow.

After Trump won, there was an increase in the number of paramilitary groups, but the GOP has been no stranger to them. In 2017, a local chapter of the Republican Party in Oregon passed a resolution allowing paramilitaries (the Oath Keepers and the Three Percenters, for instance) to provide security at the local party events. These groups are part of the Patriot Movement, a loose far-right network affiliated with the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing and armed confrontations in Nevada and Oregon in 2016.

The Republican Party seems to be very comfortable with these groups around, as we have seen in Nevada, Oregon, Michigan, and other states. However, this is not a recent venture, since the accounts of strengthening ties can be traced back even before Trump won the election in 2016. The openness about their common interests is perhaps new, but it's not surprising. Alarms were sounded when state Senate Majority Leader, Republican Mike Shirkey of Michigan, participated in a rally organized by paramilitaries that stormed the Michigan Capitol back in April 2020 alongside a member of a group involved in the planned kidnapping of Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.

Though Michigan has a history of paramilitaries, the state GOP had tied itself to them, especially since the election as party co-chair of Meshawn Maddock. She organized a protest to interrupt ballot counting in Detroit, where paramilitaries were present.

Johnson's statement is outrageous, not only for the racism, but also for the approval of white armed groups as opposed to unarmed groups as well as the acknowledgement that he didn't feel threatened by them since they were exercising their freedom. Compare that to his comments about BLM and Antifa, but that's another discussion.

The connections the Republican Party has with paramilitaries are not ambiguous, yet the ongoing investigation into the Capitol attack will likely provide more evidence of the extremely disturbing behavior of the formerly conservative party. Ties between not only Trump and his associates, like Roger Stone, whose security detail included members of the Oath Keepers, but the GOP at state and local levels, should bring into the discussion how one of the major parties in the country is going to stand for democracy while leading a double-life with paramilitaries bent on racial supremacy.

Republican lawmakers couldn't please former President Donald Trump by attempting to overturn the election results on January 6, so they decided to change the laws for the next election. State legislatures have introduced more than 250 bills intended to significantly reduce voting rights across the country. These efforts in voter suppression have historically targeted minority voters, especially Black voters.

Voter suppression has been a fundamental feature of the formerly conservative party, and whether by gerrymandering, passing restrictive voter ID laws, upholding felony disenfranchisement, promoting voter registration purges, or eviscerating the 1965 Voting Rights Act, the Jim Crow era doesn't seem to be so long ago.

After the insurrection, Joe Biden's inauguration came as a sign that democracy was safe, momentarily, but that the underlying problems were still there, representing a critical threat to the system. The string of lies the former president, his followers, and the GOP have continued to spread, leading to the violent sacking of the Capitol, are indicators of the perilous situation American democracy finds itself in.

After the insurrection, the string of lies the former president, his followers, and the GOP have continued to spread, leading to the violent sacking of the Capitol, are indicators of the perilous situation American democracy finds itself in.

For the past three weeks, the Democratic majority in the Congress has demanded answers from former and current officials responsible for the safety and intelligence failures that allowed the Capitol to be stormed. This was not only a shameful episode in American history, but also a warning that if the threat represented by anti-government actors aligned with the former president is treated with impunity, the consequences could provoke the breakdown of democracy in the near future.

Republicans didn't wait long to plan for the next election, while also contesting the results that unequivocally made Joe Biden the 46th president of the United States.

It was clear that Republicans were not going to allow people to vote easily, especially after their defeat in Georgia. Voting by mail has been a tradition in some Republican-leaning states, like Florida, where the governor is now proposing changes to the state's vote-by-mail laws, making the case for limiting its use. It seems the Republican Party doesn't mind if with this decision they could be hurting themselves, especially considering that in Florida the retiree population depends on voting by mail.

The governor's proposal makes it clear that for the Republican Party it is crucial to prevent minorities from voting by mail; they must have done their math, and with this measure, they can suppress the vote sufficiently to allow them to win.

The most recent Supreme Court arguments make clear the GOP will do anything, even recognize before the Court that preserving the right to vote goes against their interests. The Arizona case allowed the Republican Party to be on the record in their historical voter-suppression efforts with the support of a conservative supermajority that seems committed to continuing to break up the Voting Rights Act.

These state cases are mostly based on the argument of alleged electoral fraud being made under the cover of the pandemic; however, the lawsuits are not only going after voting by mail, which was extended due to health and safety concerns after the covid outbreak. These cases are attempting to make it easier for GOP-controlled state legislatures to eliminate provisions that protect minorities' voting rights. According to Bruce V. Spiva, a lawyer representing the DNC, "More voting restrictions have been enacted over the last decade than at any point since the end of Jim Crow."

This is not an unusual ploy. There has been a pattern giving the GOP the freedom to admit that allowing certain groups to vote is detrimental to its electoral interests: from Lindsey Graham to Donald Trump, the formerly conservative party has publicly expressed that voting rights should be limited to a certain type of voter: Republicans.

Republicans don't want racial minorities to vote. Whether it is disenfranchising voters by limiting their registrations; manipulating districts, or blocking voter access to ballots and polling stations—these are actions that must be defeated.

The country needs to get behind the most recent legislation passed by the House of Representatives. Otherwise, the states are going to continue limiting voting rights, and in consequence, create the conditions for a renewed Jim Crow era.

A functioning democracy needs political parties to connect problems with solutions. In the current state of affairs, American democracy has only one effective democratic party. The other one has been drifting toward illiberalism in a trend that started long before Donald Trump became its leader. The violent insurrection of January 6 confirms its abdication of the values and principles for which it supposedly stands.

A society as diverse as the United States needs all-encompassing representation from its political parties. Yet the former conservative party has become so homogeneous that, today, the white non-college educated population makes up 57 percent of its voters, with 25 percent of white college-educated and 17 percent of non-white voters identifying as Republicans or Republican-leaning.

This demographic shift can be seen in the composition of both parties. The base of the GOP has become increasingly white (82 percent) while the Democratic party has developed into a more diverse constituency, and with that, the policies that the party moves forward. The diversity within the Democratic Party has provoked a backlash in the Republican Party, solidifying its embrace of Christian nationalism.

The argument, from a conservative standpoint, is that American democracy has lost its commitment to uphold what they consider to be the authentic American way of life; that is, a white, religiously-conservative majority has fallen for the conspiracy theories that have given prominent political status to otherwise extremist beliefs. The Republican Party base has backslid as a reaction to the electorate's demographic reshape, and to the GOP base's displacement.

Nonetheless, the Republican Party didn't just suddenly become a white nationalist party. The background for this behavior can be traced back as far as to the administrations of Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and George H.W. Bush, where efforts to encourage white voters were intended to quash the non-white voter. The Republican Party has been known as the gerrymandering and voter suppression champion for years.

Trump's presence in the White House made white nationalism among Republicans acceptable again, bringing back memories of those who advocated in the past for voter suppression, with his campaign candidly recognizing it as a strategy for winning battleground states. There is no honest way to understand the demise of the Republican Party if Trump is the only one taking the blame. The GOP enabled a man without any political experience, but with a vast history of racism. That should have been enough to break with him. Instead, they not only embraced his rhetoric, but reiterated his discourse, and supported his falsehoods by adopting them as their own.

It wasn't that the Republican Party unexpectedly cut ties with democracy. The complicity with discrediting the electoral system, even though they have all been elected under the same norms and procedures, has to be found in their silence, if not support, considering the blatant effort to overturn the results of a lawfully held election.

In the election's aftermath, Mitch McConnell chose to remain on the sidelines, while Trump falsely announced his electoral victory. He then moved on to block the second impeachment procedure after the January 6 assault on the Capitol, making sure it reached the Senate after Biden's inaugural, paving the way for Trump's second acquittal. McConnell's final act was to blame the House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, for the failure to convict Trump and hold him accountable for inciting the insurrection, in a whitewashing speech aimed at Republican donors, pretending to take back control of the party.

This behavior is perhaps the peak in the decomposing trajectory of the conservative party in the United States. The Republican Party has seen its de facto majority, via the Electoral College, drop to the point that Georgia was lost, at the presidential as well as the Senate levels, with the threat of Texas turning purple looming large. In response to the concerns among moderate members of the party about its decline, Republican leadership has reacted by doubling down on voter suppression.

The Republican Party's crisis shouldn't be assumed in any way as a hostage situation. This party is not supporting Trump out of fear of his sway over the base. That's naive. The party found in Trump more affinity than they had initially thought. Their mutual disdain for the first African-American president should have given you a clue of the many coincidences and common interests Trump and his party have. They now belong to each other, and it seems unlikely there is a chance for a breakup anytime soon.

The untold story of the January 6 assault on the United States Capitol is how white supremacists were not out to "stop the steal" of a presidential election in which several of the insurgents didn't even participate. This was a revolt incited by those in power who, although knowing Joe Biden won the election, were certain they could subvert the political order, just like they had been doing for the past four years.

The rise of Donald Trump to the presidency of the United States represents an inflection point in the global erosion of democracy, with the United States downgraded to a "flawed democracy" in 2017. Many understood that as a sign that Trump's victory was a symptom, rather than a cause of deterioration. "Here's the main reason for the US downgrade to the category of flawed democracy," wrote political scientists Dinorah Azpuru and Michael Hall that year. "There was a drop in the levels of trust in political parties, elected representatives and governmental institutions."

If American democracy cannot make sure that demagogues, opportunists, or authoritarians are responsible for their behavior, then the American experiment is over.

During Trump's four years, this democracy has seen changes in its traditional behavior, in both domestic and foreign policy agendas. That Trump ran on a nationalist platform didn't fully prepare us for a downward performance that has sent it through a much more critical path. In December, the Center for Systemic Peace released its POLITY scale, with a severe assessment of the current state of US democracy. The index found the US dropped below the "democracy threshold," saying it's now in the ballpark of an "anocracy" (which is part democracy, part dictatorship).

As the trial for incitement of insurrection continues, let's not forget what's at the core of this violent mob revolt. This was never a reaction against a flawed election. Trump and his campaign lost more that 60 cases in courts, with many of them decided by conservative judges appointed by previous Republican administrations, as well as his own. Under overwhelming pressure, state election officials, including those from his own party, certified the results of the 2020 election. Nonetheless, the former president openly called election clerks and state legislatures to overturn certified results.

But this was never about election results. It was evident Joe Biden had won the election. This was about disenfranchising Black voters. Trump knew he had lost the election, and he also knew there was never a case of ballot-stuffing in predominant Black cities. The attempt to disenfranchise 81,283,361 voters (51.3 percent) rarely gets a mention. Instead, Trump and his acolytes insist on the harm done to his 74,222,960 voters (46.8 percent). The Trump campaign strategy was to contest votes in places like Philadelphia, where 44 percent of the population is Black.

If Republicans refuse to stand by the rule of law, in support of a president that had no respect for norms or institutions, they will be planting the seed for the next authoritarian.

This plan was deeply rooted in what political scientist Larry Bartels has called ethnic antagonism, a term that helps explain the behavior of white Americans who fear that a more diverse country is leading to their exclusion, and therefore, democracy is seen as facilitating their supposed marginalization. Bartels says that ethnic antagonism has a substantial negative effect on Republicans' commitment to democracy.

This could explain the Republican Party's shift to the far right, with lawmakers refusing to acknowledge the results of the election, and therefore, declining to recognize President Biden, then, as president-elect, pretending Trump had a chance to remain in office. These are the same lawmakers set to vote to acquit former President Trump in his second Senate trial. Nevertheless, as Pippa Norris has suggested, the Republican Party's authoritarian populism is the cause rather than a consequence of the Trump presidency and of this overt attempt to overthrow democracy.

The backsliding of the Republican Party can be seen in the refuge it has provided to a behavior that was once considered to be extremist, but that today represents the mainstream of the former conservative party. The embrace of militias groups that used to be in the fringes were suddenly emboldened by the former president's call to "Liberate Michigan" is just one of the many examples of the democratic decline of the GOP. This is also a stark reminder that there seems to be only one party that actually believes in democracy.

The images of the mob assaulting the Capitol building reminded me of my home country, Venezuela, and the failed coup led by Hugo Chávez on February 4, 1992. His assault on Venezuelan democracy was in no way figurative, people died, some as part of the coup, and others defending our democracy from it. Chavez surrendered, and admitted his responsibility in the plot to overthrow democracy. He was then arrested. Unfortunately, his case was dismissed as a pledge to unify the country, and six years later he ran for office. He won. The rest is history.

Trump needs to be held accountable, regardless of his condition as a former president. If American democracy cannot make sure that demagogues, opportunists, or authoritarians are responsible for their behavior, then the American experiment is over.

In his defense, the former president argues that he should not be tried because he is no longer in office. This is irrelevant, and in no way imperiled by legal constraints, because this is strictly a political matter. The Republican Party is already complicit in the overt violation of human rights his campaign led to disenfranchise millions of Black voters. If they refuse to stand by the rule of law, in support of a president that had no respect for norms or institutions, they will be planting the seed for the next authoritarian, and, you can be sure, it will succeed if Republicans aren't penalized for their effort to overthrow democratic institutions in the United States.

—María Isabel Puerta Riera

Political and economic crisis used to be the main reason migrants left Latin America. But recent changes in migration patterns suggest that something else is going on. It turns out other circumstances (violence, food insecurity) or other combinations of factors (corruption, poverty and climate change) also inspire the decision to leave.

In 2016, more than 66 percent of the population in Honduras lived in poverty. Guatemala occupied fifth place in the top 10 list of poorest economies in Latin America and the Caribbean in 2018. Although El Salvador has been suffering from persistently low levels of economic growth, it has shown minor improvement, though violence continues to be one among the main incentives for people to migrate.

The Trump administration's stance on immigration policy was not only anti-immigrant. It was anti-scientific, too.

But in recent years, it has become evident that the impact of climate change on the region is critical to a situation that's forcing families and unaccompanied minors to leave and seek asylum in the United States. These countries have felt the direct consequences of climate change in their agriculture-based economies.

Between droughts and floods, crops are lost, as are the livelihoods of people who have traditionally depended on agriculture or fishing to make a living. Climate change is particularly devastating in countries characterized by poor governance and corruption, where the lack of institutional response throws families into food insecurity.

In addition to the loss of agriculture as a way of life, and the high levels of malnourishment that come with that, violence is another trigger for migration, especially in El Salvador, with one of the highest rates of homicides in the area of the Northern Triangle. Also, among migrants from Honduras, and in less proportion Guatemala, insecurity is among the main reasons to leave. Governments incapable of addressing climate change and violence conspire with powerful gangs and drug trafficking to create conditions by which vulnerable people are pushed out.

In response, multilateral efforts led by the United States and the Inter-American Development Bank, based in Washington, were designed to provide assistance to countries experiencing significant migration. Resources were assigned, not only to control migration, but to improve people's lives. A series of programs targeting climate change, prosperity, economic security and governance were part of a strategy to build conditions needed to minimize effects leading to sustained migration cycles.

These programs, like the Climate, Nature, and Communities of Guatemala, were successful under the Barack Obama administration and offered encouraging outcomes in response to climate change with crop diversification, water conservation and reforestation. But in 2017, the Trump administration canceled them.

Trump's decision in 2019 to cut aid to El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala came as no surprise, but it failed to prevent migrants from coming. Moreover, the lifeline those funds provided to the most vulnerable population in the region left no alternative: leaving the country was their only hope to survive food insecurity and violence.

Trump's fear-mongering of immigrants, whether he was referring to Muslims or Central Americans, reflected a more disturbing feature that unfortunately is shared by many of his followers. Ironically, a base that touts Christianity as a sign of moral superiority supported child separations at the border, banning people for religious beliefs, and cutting aid to prevent those seeking help from reaching the country.

Having made immigration his main campaign promise in 2016, it was clear undocumented immigrants were not the only target. Stephen Miller drastically curbed legal immigration. Asylum seekers were blocked at the border while affirmative asylum cases suffered a significant backlog (up to eight years in some cases!) due to the pressure put on the system by defensive asylum cases. Moreover, the Trump administration radically reduced the number of refugees allowed in the country.

Miller's proposals to reduce legal immigration were so harsh they got no traction even among Republicans. So the administration just went ahead and made it harder to enter. These changes caused backlogs in employment-based visas, altering the procedures that had been in place for years, contributing to the buildup in the vetting of Green Cards as well. However, it didn't stop there. Trump also explored the possibility of revoking citizenship when his administration created a "denaturalization task force" aimed at reviewing granted citizenship. All of this, in other words, was an effort to make legal immigration impossible or it threatened to create a path to second-class citizenship.

Even if we just try to approach it from a strictly pragmatic standpoint, without any suggestion of empathy or solidarity, it would have made sense to continue Obama's assistance program in Central America. If Trump had been determined to prevent a crisis in the asylum system, the decision to cut aid had the opposite effect. Indeed, it triggered a much more significant cycle of migrants heading to the United States.

This is not just a blatant anti-immigrant stance; this is also an anti-scientific perspective. Decisions by the Trump administration to roll back environmental policies are the strongest statement of a shared contempt for climate change awareness. Supporters are merely protecting the interests of wealth tied to the polluting industry creating conditions driving people out of Central America.

The last four years have been a complete departure from the melting pot metaphor that has made Americans so proud. Avoiding any reference to the historical background of a nation built upon the displacement of its original population, and the historical social debt from years of slavery and segregation, the Trump administration became a safe haven for anti-immigration sentiment. Although it didn't originate within trumpism, it has been significantly mainstreamed by Donald Trump.

The images of children in cages, with the former president referring to shithole countries, wasn't what we remembered from the leading democracy advocate in the world. Reconciling America's past as the shelter for those in desperate need of a home had never been more implausible. This was a shock for many around the world, but not for those that had been warning about the radicalization of the Republican Party. This is not about conservatism anymore; this is a straightforward embrace of nativism in a time when the greatest fear of the still-majoritarian white population is an inevitable demographic shift.

We are not here to displace Americans, we are here to contribute to a better America, with our knowledge, skills and experience. President Joe Biden has made clear that his administration would not only reverse the immigration policies enacted by the previous president, but also introduce further measures to correct the path the country had taken toward immigration. However, this is going to be a complicated shift. On January 26, a U.S. district judge barred this administration from imposing a 100-day deportation halt President Biden had ordered DHS to apply. This is a sign for Democrats that it would be wise for them to exercise their majority. It should be clear now that there is little hope for a bipartisan commitment to an immigration overhaul while the prospects of narrowing their demands are looming.

This should come as no surprise after the change of heart we have seen in some lawmakers, like Sen. Lindsey Graham, once Trump took office in 2017. The South Carolina senator, once a staunch immigration defender, became an ally to one of the most anti-immigration administrations in recent history, supporting Trump's cruel policies. Quite the contrast from the bipartisan bill he introduced in 2016 with Sen. Dick Durban: Bar Removal of Individuals Who Dream of Growing Our Economy, as an effort to protect DACA recipients and DACA-eligible individuals from deportation.

Graham knows immigrants make a significant contribution to the economy. Otherwise, why was he was calling for an immigration reform and a pathway to citizenship for 11 million undocumented immigrants back in 2014? President Biden has said Trump's policy record has been detrimental for the economy, emphasizing the impact that "the total annual contribution of foreign-born workers"has on the economy. The U.S. economy benefits from immigrants in a wide range of fields, from agriculture to technology, and there is an increasing need for more college-educated and skilled workers in the near future. In addition to this scenario, there are signs of population growth stagnation, with the lowest levels registered in the last decade since probably 1900.

There is a deep divide between a once-labeled country of immigrants, and a historically dominant population that feels threatened by the increasing diversity that is set to become the majority in the next two decades. These fears go beyond ethnicity. It is also a response to a multicultural environment the majority understands as a displacement not only in terms of race and ethnicity, but also cultural identity and political values.

This points to a failure in making the case for immigration beyond economic utilitarianism. The legacy of Trump's immigration policy is the shutdown of the country to people that don't look like the majority. This does not imply that the current immigration system is any easier to deal with for the desired immigrant. Biden's immigration plan addresses the modernization of the system, a debate that should be at the center of the proposed overhaul and is mostly overlooked. If you think the asylum and refugee processes are hard, the other two possibilities are as difficult if not more. And yes, there aren't that many opportunities for immigrating to the United States.

The argument about the supposed economic anxiety, and the claim that immigrants are stealing American jobs, end up discredited by the demands of farmers and tech companies in need of skilled and professional foreign workers, since they cannot find locals willing to take those jobs. In Florida, for the past few years, teacher and staff shortages have created such a critical scenario, that foreigners like me, have been hired to teach middle school English.

We are not here to displace Americans, we are here to contribute to a better America, with our knowledge, skills and experience. The American dream has been one for those born in this land, and for some of us born abroad. It is a sign of hope that Joe Biden understands this country is a much better version when it opens its doors to those who are willing to work hard to make it possible.