Our Choice For President

Our primary mission is to provide our readers, whether they arrived in the country a few weeks ago or generations ago, with information that can improve their quality of life. We are not in the business of selling opinions as news. That is why Tribuna has refrained from making political endorsements for most of its history over the years.

By Celia Bacelar Palmares and Emanuela Palmares | Translated by Jamal Fox & Alisson Ziza

 

Our primary mission is to provide our readers, whether they arrived in the country a few weeks ago or generations ago, with information that can improve their quality of life. We are not in the business of selling opinions as news. That is why Tribuna has refrained from making political endorsements for most of its history over the years.

We understand that there is great political diversity within the immigrant community. Personal experiences with extreme governments and politics come stowed away with immigrants on their journey. 

It is not as simple as saying Democrats are right and Republicans are wrong, or that Democrats will provide legalization for millions of undocumented immigrants, and Republicans won't.

As evidence, we have the stark contrast between President Ronald Reagan's amnesty and President Barack Obama's deportation rates.

Reagan granted 2.7 million immigrants with permanent legal status, and Obama deported 3 million, including an estimated 1.7 million people who had no criminal record.

Why does this matter when that was nearly 35 years ago? Because many of the immigrants granted amnesty under Reagan are in their late 50s and early 60s; they have experienced that contrast and are now eligible to vote.

And then there was Trump, who hijacked the Republican Party and took the Obama Administration immigration policies to unprecedented draconian heights, placing children in cages and separating families as a calculated deterrent agent. He spewed racist and xenophobic messaging as a candidate and continued as president, and as president, he was not redeemed by or transformed in any way by the sheer weight of the most honorable elected office in the world.

Not to mention the complete mishandling of a pandemic that has cost hundreds of thousands of lives.

Unprecedented times call for unprecedented actions.

While the narrative that "Democrats are right and Republicans are wrong” underestimates the complexity of the political times we live in, we wholeheartedly believe that President Trump is, in fact, the wrong choice for our country.

Joe Biden may not be the perfect president we wished for, but in 2020, he is the president we need to restore our faith in the basic principles of American government and to heal our country