President Joe Biden and V.P. Kamala Harris
The White House
January 20, 2022
Today marks the first anniversary of your historic election and closure of the nefarious Trump administration, ending the worst nightmare in the history of the United States and bringing to justice the supremacist cancer in our country, in the aftermath of the fascist insurrection on January 6, 2021.
Despite this fete, you are facing declining poll numbers, a fractured Democratic Party and the miserable betrayal of 2 DINO (Democratic in name only) senators that have blocked your most important policy agenda and jeopardized Democracy, voting rights and the rule of law in our country.
But there is a silver lining and a golden opportunity in this morass, as you realize the potential collapse of your administration and the economy, and as you are forced to take bold action and confront a recalcitrant Republican Party determined to embrace Trump and defend his failed legacy.
As we proposed last week in the CMSC’s newsletter, we need for you to grant a path towards legalization and U.S. citizenship for all Dreamers and their parents and the return of almost 1 million U.S.-citizen children exiled in Mexico and Central America with their deported parents by the Obama and Trump administrations.
President Biden, we call upon you to exercise your Presidential Authority and Pardon all Undocumented Immigrants, currently in the United States as of today, as a form of Comprehensive Emancipation of Essential Workers and Victims of Forced Exile, without risking the possibility of being reversed by the U.S. Supreme Court, or Congress, if the Republicans regain majority in the House of Representatives.
President Jimmy Carter granted amnesty as a General Presidential Pardon to more than 570,000 Vietnam-era draft dodgers on January 21, 1977, during his first day in office to heal the nation from the Vietnam War’s quagmire and welcomed back those that had sought refuge in other nations to avoid prosecution for their opposition to an unjust war.
Your Presidential Pardon authority is as old as the United States of America and has never been contested or challenged in court or in Congress.
To wit, George Washington pardoned the culprits involved in the tax rebellion Whiskey Revolt of 1795. Andrew Jackson pardoned the confederate soldiers after the U.S. Civil War; Teddy Roosevelt pardoned the Filipino insurrectionists after the 1898 Spanish-American War and Gerald Ford pardoned in 1974 all deserters of the Vietnam War.
Given the growing demand from the private sector for immigrant labor and the shortage of workers in today’s job market, the massive participation of Latino and undocumented essential workers during the last 2 years of the COVID pandemic, and a booming economy and recovery under your leadership, your General Presidential Pardon of all Undocumented Immigrants currently in the United States would logical, practical and doable as a means to resolve the political intransigence that you are facing.
~ Prof. Armando Vazquez-Ramos
California-Mexico Studies Center
Long Beach, CA