During the presidential debates (which seem as if they were a lifetime ago, during the longest election ever), then former-Vice President Joe Biden said he and former President Barack Obama "made a mistake" because they did not achieve comprehensive immigration reform during their administration.

You say tomatoe, and I say tomato. You say "mistake," and I say "conscious inaction."

The Obama-Biden Administration pinned the blame solely on the Republicans who opposed broader reform. But Obama and Biden themselves contributed to the inaction, making political calculations that left legislative efforts languishing throughout their first term in office, forcing Obama to rely heavily upon executive actions, which were unraveled during the Trump Administration.

The Obama-Biden Administration set a record for removals of immigrants convicted of serious crimes. Some critics on the left labeled him "deporter-in-chief."

During their administration, the budget for immigration enforcement jumped at one point to a staggering $18 billion annually.

To be fair, according to a study by the Migration Policy Institute, overall, 5.2 million people were deported under Obama, compared to 10.3 million under former President George W. Bush and 12.2 million under former President Bill Clinton.

Enter Biden's U.S. Citizenship Act of 2021, an "all your heart's desire immigration wish" that sounds dreamy, after four years in the depths of darkness, but is only possible since the Act does not mention the "A" word (amnesty).

In the excitement of the Biden Administration announcement of the U.S. Citizenship Act of 2021, let's not forget that having total Democratic control of Congress. along with a Biden White House do not automatically guarantee meaningful immigration reform.

The only hope for the immigrant community does not lie in Republicans and Democrats getting along; it lies in the power of the Latino vote, and it lies in naturalized Americans not forgetting their plight as undocumented immigrants and being a voice for the voiceless.

Immigrants were left behind in the Bush-Cheney, Obama-Biden and Trump-Pence administrations by a combination of factors that, to the naked eye, fall along party lines: xenophobia fueled by 9/11, eagerness to calm the fears of the right in a transitional political period and the rise of vocal white supremacy cloaked in Trump flags.

But if we look closer, there is a common denominator - the belief that the Latino vote is not worth the political risk. But then, this year, Georgia elected two Democratic U.S. senators, and all of a sudden, there is something tangible to gain.

According to a report by NBC News, Latinos were not the reason Warnock and Osoff defeated Republicans Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue. Black voters were vital, but Latinos were part of a critical multicultural coalition and infrastructure.

According to Bernard Fraga, an associate professor of political science at Emory University and author of The Turnout Gap: Race, Ethnicity and Political Inequality in a Diversifying America, 78 percent of Latinos who voted in the general election returned to vote in the Senate runoffs.

So, as it has always been, we are our only hope. We are grateful to hear the Biden administration's positive direction towards meaningful immigration reform but let us not forget: We are the ones we have been waiting for. Georgia has shown us this.