Biden and Pa. senators are alienating immigrant voters like me

Pennsylvania is a battleground state and home to roughly 946,000 immigrants, including me. I arrived in Philadelphia as an undocumented child; my family came from Colombia seeking a better future. I know all too well the cruelty of our immigration system and Immigration and Customs Enforcement. I watched my father get arrested, only to be deported. I have lived in separation from him for the majority of my life.

Since 2021, I have been a naturalized citizen and a registered voter. The very same elected leaders who will be asking me to vote for them this year are not only throwing my community under the bus but actively harming it.

Earlier this year, in reference to proposed border security legislation, President Joe Biden said, “If that bill were the law today, I’d shut down the border right now and fix it quickly.” Two months ago, Sen. John Fetterman stated that “we need a secure border,” but made no mention of a pathway to citizenship for the 11 million undocumented people in this country, a community that used to include his wife. Sen. Bob Casey, who is also running for reelection this year, has openly endorsed “securing the border” and sending billions of taxpayer dollars for the United States’ proxy wars. These senators voted twice in favor of a package of anti-immigrant bills that would close the border and gut asylum. Now, the president is considering executive orders to enact those two actions.

Biden, Casey, and Fetterman do not care about immigrants. Their actions demonstrate this clearly.

The national conversation has only included measures for border militarization and the expansion of the deportation machine; all of the promises of a pathway to citizenship for the last 20 years have been abandoned. These concessions are in addition to the expansion of detention and deportations over the last three years, and the continued border wall construction underway outside of McAllen, Texas.

This is an insult to the immigrant community. Our people and our families deserve dignity and justice. We are not political pawns to be used for stump speeches and campaign sound bites. These negotiations are an affront to all working-class people whose tax money is being used for war, weapons, and death while wages remain stagnant, the impact of inflation is still being felt, and there are housing, health care, childcare, public education, opioid, and environmental crises.

In 2020, Biden campaigned on overturning Trump-era immigration policies. Not only has he failed to deliver, Biden, with the support of senators like Casey and Fetterman, is now actively trying to restart or expand those policies.

But we all know Biden and Casey cannot win Pennsylvania without the support of Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) voters, many of whom are immigrants or children of immigrants. You can’t represent voters if you don’t listen to them, too.

The failed Senate immigration bills are rooted in xenophobia and white supremacy, denying people their right to asylum. Yet, overwhelmingly, voters support the U.S. having a system for asylum-seekers. Turning your back on immigrants, demonizing and endangering families, and pursuing billions for wars is how you alienate not just voters like me but also youth, Muslims, and people of color. We are tired of being used, talked at, or ignored. We are tired of always being thrown away.

If Biden, Casey, and Fetterman want to be elected, then they need to earn our support. End the pursuit of anti-immigrant policies and legislation that reduces people’s rights to asylum and increases immigrant detention and deportations.

Instead of expanding the deportation machine, demonstrate commitment to the immigrant community by ending the ICE contracts at the Moshannon, Pike, Clinton, and Elizabeth detention centers. These prisons have years of reported verbal and physical abuse, medical neglect, lack of nutritious food, and overreliance on solitary confinement. Just last December, a Cameroonian man died in the Moshannon Detention Center right before he was due to be released.

The seeds our politicians sow now will bear fruit in November. For their sake, and for the sake of the lives of so many innocent people, I urge each candidate on the ballot to choose justice over division, humanity over war.

Miguel E. Andrade is a Colombian-born communications strategist and freelancer based out of Philadelphia. His work has been featured in the New York Times, the Huffington Post, Univision, Telemundo, and Democracy Now!