바이든과 트럼프의 차이는? (NYT)

*주요내용

With the number of migrants crossing the southern border surging and the pandemic proving to be far from over, the Biden administration has decided to leave in place for now the public health rule that has allowed it to turn away hundreds of thousands of migrants, officials said. A.C.L.U.’s suit, the administration said that blocking enforcement of the rule now would lead to the immigration system being further overwhelmed by asylum-seekers and to even more overcrowded and unsafe conditions in border facilities. That goal has proved difficult to achieve, leaving the White House under fire from the left for not moving aggressively enough to undo Mr. Trump’s legacy even as Republicans accuse Mr. Biden of creating a crisis on the border by suggesting that he will make it easier for many people to get a shot at entering the U.S. The varying degrees of enforcement of the public health rule have sown confusion among migrants and driven many to make repeated efforts at getting into the United States, despite pleas from the Biden White House not to..

 

남부국경을 넘는 불법이민자의 수가 많아지고 팬데믹 상황이 길어질 것으로 보이는 상황에 바이든 행정부는 공공보건 정책에따라서 현재 수백명의 이만자들을 돌려보내기로 결정했다. ACLU측이 고발한 내용에 따르면, 바이든 행정부는 강제적인 제제는 이민 시스템을 더 혼란스럽게 할 것이며 국경을 위험하게 하는 것이라고 주장했다. 바이든 행정부의  당초 이민자 정책은 성과를 보이지 않는 가운데, 좌파측에서는 트럼프의 흔적을 지우지 못하는 것 때문에 또 공화당측에서는 국경을 통과하는 사람들에게 백신을 맞추는 것이 훨씬 좋은 방법이라고 하면서 바이든이 혼란을 야기하고 있다고 비판했다. 공공보건의 다양한 강제 시스템으로 인해 이민자들에게 혼돈을 주고 반복적으로 미국 출입국에 문을 두드리는 상황을 연출하고 있다. 이는 바이든의 백악관 측이 그렇게 하지 않겠다고 공언한 것이기도 하다.

 

*단어와 표현

the American Civil Liberties Union 미국시민자유연맹
budget-related legislative process 예산관련 입법절차
the sheer number of people 많은 사람들
the Department of Homeland Security 국토안보부
Immigrations and Customs Enforcement 이민세관집행부

 

*짧평

바이든은 트럼프와 달라야 했다. 인종차별주의자, 극우파라는 프레임을 씌워 트럼프를 악마화하고 그 자리를 꽤어찬 바이든과 민주당이기 때문이었다. 트럼프가 한 것은 왠만하면 그 반대로 하는 것이 맞는 것이었다. 적어도 선거 전에는 말이다. 그런데 바이든 행정부의 초반 행보를 보면 트럼프가 싸지른 똥을 치우는 모양새 대신에 트럼프와 적어도 비슷한 방향으로 국정을 운영하는 것을 볼 수가 있다. 안보 문제를 보면, 트럼프가 시작한 중국과의 전쟁의 바통을 그대로 이어 받아 바이든정부 역시 중국에 대항하고 중국 공산당을 악의 근원으로 여기고 연일 비판을 이어 가고 있으며, 전통적 동맹이 Five Eyes 국가들은 물론이고, 타국과들과의 공조를 만들어 가고 있다. 경제문제에서는 코로나 상황을 타개하고자 이어 가고 있는 국민재난지원에 대해서도 바이든 정부의 그 규모나 자금의 사용 내용이 더 크고 차이가 있을 지언정, 트럼프 역시 당시에는 국가의 최소개입의 시장자본주의를 옹호하는 공화당의 정부로써는 이래적으로 천문학적인 재난지원금을 사용한 바가 있다. 차이는 있다고 볼 수 있으나, 트럼프가 하지 않았던 부분은 아닌 것이다. 그리고 오늘 기사가 말하는 이민자 문제는 트럼프를 악마로 몰아가는데 많이 사용되었던 부분인데, 멕시크와의 국경에 장벽을 쌓는 일부터 불법이민자의 추방, 불법이민자의 입국을 강도 높게 봉쇄하는 과정에서 이민자 가족들의 고통을 당하고 인권탄압을 받은 것에 선거 당시 바이든 대통령 후보는 강하게 비난했으며, 자신은 이민정책을 완화하고 이민자들을 받아 들일 것임을 시사했다. 바이든의 그런 입장 표명들은 당시 온두라스 등에서 바이든이 대통령이 될 수있다는 희망에 많은 남미 이민자들이 카라반을 타고 미국국경으로 머나먼 길을 줄지어 여행하는 풍경을 낳기도 했다. 

하지만 수개월이 지난 시점에 바이든 정부의 모습은 어떠한가? 결과가 나오기에는 너무 이른 시점이라 잘하고 못하고를 떠나서 그의 정책 수행의 방향만 본다면 최소한 트럼프와 차별을 만들어내는 데에는 실패를 하고 있는 것으로 보인다. 그래서 같은 좌파내의 세력들, 특히 지지하는 시민단체들에게서 볼맨 소리가 나오고 있는 것이다. 이를 어떻게 봐야 할 것인가? 국가의 이익을 위해서 좌와 우가 중요하지 않다는 관점에서 봐야할 것인가? 그렇다면 바이든의 반 트럼프 공약을 보고 그를 지지한 수많은 유권자들은 뭘 보고 그를 뽑았다는 건가? 속은 건가? 아니면 원래 유권자들은 항상 속는건가? 트럼프가 싼 똥인지는 모르겠으나, 프로트럼프와 안티트럼프의 광풍이 너무 몰아 닥친 몇년간의 미국 정치 상황에 정책은 뒤로하고 그저 트럼프만 아니면 된다는 식의 감정적이고 비상식적인 상황인식이 오늘의 미국 정치 상황을 만든 것은 아닌가 씁쓸한 생각이 든다. 

Biden Administration to Keep Using Public Health Rule to Turn Away Migrants

Citing new concerns about the spread of the coronavirus, the administration will continue to rely for now on a Trump-era policy.

Families from Central America who were seeking asylum speaking to Border Patrol agents after crossing the Rio Grande from Mexico into Roma, Texas, last week.Credit...Go Nakamura/Reuters

By Eileen Sullivan and Zolan Kanno-Youngs

Aug. 2, 2021

 

WASHINGTON — With the number of migrants crossing the southern border surging and the pandemic proving to be far from over, the Biden administration has decided to leave in place for now the public health rule that has allowed it to turn away hundreds of thousands of migrants, officials said.

The decision, confirmed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Monday, amounted to a shift by the administration, which had been working on plans to begin lifting the rule this summer, more than a year after it was imposed by the Trump administration. The C.D.C. said allowing noncitizens to come over the border from either Mexico or Canada “creates a serious danger” of further spread of the coronavirus.

President Biden has come under intense pressure for months from some Democrats and supporters of more liberal immigration policies to lift the rule, which critics say has been employed less to protect public health than as a politically defensible way to limit immigration.

The recent spread of the highly transmissible Delta variant has bolstered the argument that the public health rule, known as Title 42, remains necessary to contain the coronavirus. And the virus’s quickening spread comes as border officials are so overwhelmed with the persistent pace of illegal migration that they say that allowing more migrants into the country by lifting the rule poses the threat of a humanitarian crisis.

On Monday, the American Civil Liberties Union said it would move forward with a lawsuit seeking to force the administration to lift the public health order for migrant families after months of negotiations with the “ultimate goal” of ending the policy, one of the group’s lawyers said.

“It is now clear that there is no immediate plan to do that,” Lee Gelernt of the A.C.L.U., the lead lawyer on the case, said in a statement on Monday. “The administration made repeated public statements that it just needed some time to build back the asylum system the Trump administration depleted. We gave them seven months. Time is up.”

 

While the administration has used the rule to rapidly turn around single adults and many migrant families, it has not applied the restriction to migrant children arriving alone at the southern border, in a departure from the Trump administration.

 

In a court filing on Monday responding to the A.C.L.U.’s suit, the administration said that blocking enforcement of the rule now would lead to the immigration system being further overwhelmed by asylum-seekers and to even more overcrowded and unsafe conditions in border facilities. Overcrowding at southern border stations makes it difficult to impose public health precautions like social distancing, the filing said, noting that more migrants have been testing positive for the coronavirus. More border officers are testing positive, as well.

Keeping the public health order in place, David Shahoulian, the assistant secretary for border and immigration policy at the Department of Homeland Security, said in the filing, is “critical” given the current conditions.

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Mr. Biden campaigned on returning compassion to the country’s immigration system and undoing the policies of former President Donald J. Trump that significantly limited the number of asylum-seekers the country would consider. That goal has proved difficult to achieve, leaving the White House under fire from the left for not moving aggressively enough to undo Mr. Trump’s legacy even as Republicans accuse Mr. Biden of creating a crisis on the border by suggesting that he will make it easier for many people to get a shot at entering the U.S.

Mr. Biden has laid out a proposal for immigration law changes that includes a path to citizenship for some migrants already in the United States. But there is little hope of passing sweeping changes to the laws through bipartisan negotiation, so Democrats instead hope to use a budget-related legislative process to bypass Republican opposition.

Over the weekend, the administration stepped up enforcement at the southern border, sending more officers to help border officials with the lengthy processing necessary to bring migrants into the country and start making a case that they need asylum, the administration said in its court filing.

To help relieve the backup, immigration officers are bringing more families to family detention centers, using the facilities as temporary shelters. The agency entered into a new contract to add more than 1,200 beds to its family housing capacity.

The number of migrants crossing the southern border between the United States and Mexico exceeded the traditional seasonal spring surge in migration earlier this year, and the pace did not slow with the arrival of the oppressive heat of the summer months. The number of times border officials caught migrants crossing illegally in June was the highest monthly figure since April 2000. And the administration said preliminary figures for July indicate another new high.

Just a few weeks ago, the administration was considering a plan to lift the public health rule for migrant families as early as the end of July and later for single adults, who make up the bulk of the migrants who have been turned away since the beginning of the pandemic. Delaying those plans, possibly through the end of the year, is sure to be welcomed by Republicans who have proposed legislation to maintain the rule for as long as necessary. But doing so also fuels Republican arguments that the southern border is in a state of crisis.

Despite the public health rule, many migrant families have been allowed to enter the United States this year. The administration has been able to enforce the rule in some areas of the border but not others, such as South Texas, in part because of a lack of shelter capacity in Mexico. And some migrant families have also been allowed to enter the country because of special exemptions, including migrants identified as vulnerable by advocacy groups and international organizations.

But the varying degrees of enforcement of the public health rule have sown confusion among migrants and driven many to make repeated efforts at getting into the United States, despite pleas from the Biden White House not to. More than a third of the crossings tracked by Customs and Border Protection in June were attempted by a repeat crosser.

While the Border Patrol typically processes migrants who cross the border illegally, the sheer number of people who have been crossing into Texas in the Rio Grande Valley — many of whom are Central American families fleeing violence and poverty — has led the administration to send officers from Immigration and Customs Enforcement to assist with those duties and expand testing for the coronavirus. Two of the enforcement agency’s family detention centers are being used as expanded temporary shelters where families can stay until their processing is complete, an administration official said.

Democrats were highly critical of Mr. Trump’s handling of a similar surge in 2019 when he proposed a regulation to indefinitely detain migrant families caught crossing the border illegally. The rule would have replaced a decades-old court agreement that requires a certain level of care for migrant children and a 20-day limit for how long they can be held in custody.

In March, the Biden administration announced plans to hold migrant families for only 72 hours, a stark departure from the policies of both the Obama and Trump administrations.

Neither the Department of Homeland Security or Immigrations and Customs Enforcement responded to questions about the length of time the government planned to hold families in the detention centers-turned-temporary processing hubs so migrants are not waiting for days outside.

“We will be monitoring whether short-term processing and testing of families turns into longer-term detention,” Mr. Gelernt of the A.C.L.U. said.

Miriam Jordan contributed reporting from Los Angeles.

 

*원문

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/02/us/politics/biden-immigration-covid.html?action=click&module=Spotlight&pgtype=Homepage