Biden disappoints on campaign promise deliveries

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Photo by: Gage Skidmore

Former Vice President of the United States Joe Biden speaking with attendees at the Presidential Gun Sense Forum hosted by Everytown for Gun Safety and Moms Demand Action at the Iowa Events Center in Des Moines, Iowa.

Story by Emma Mayhew

It will likely not be argued that the 2020 presidential election was one of the most chaotic in American history, with riots and constant debate on what is best for our country. When President-Elect Joe Biden was declared the winner of the election, President, at the time, Donald Trump was not happy, to put it lightly. 

On Jan. 6, 2021, he sent his supporters to ‘protest peacefully’ at Capitol Hill to convince lawmakers that had Trump won. When the riot was not peaceful whatsoever, the President faced backlash for sending the mob to Capitol Hill and was tried for impeachment for the second time during his presidential term. Before the impeachment case even began, however, Biden became President on January 20, 2021. When Trump’s second impeachment case was dismissed, the nation was furious. Although it had a new president, the fact that the case was dismissed sent a clear message about the way our country’s government treats powerful people. 

Although the government is being changed by the Biden administration, the divide between Republican and Democrat has not improved, and some even consider this worse after the election was decided. 

Biden’s presidency has not been easy, as everything he does has been under the microscope of the media and American citizens. Original promises included the $2,000 stimulus check for those affected by COVID-19; distribution of vaccines across the nation; easier immigration processes for those seeking citizenship in the U.S; reversing anti-LGBTQ+ policies in the military; increasing the minimum wage to $15; rejoining the World Health Organization; and finding ways to reduce racial discrimination and increase racial equality.

And that $2,000 stimulus check that the American people are in a desperate need for? This is just another example of a major promise in delayed action.

— Emma Mayhew

So far, the Biden Administration has rejoined the Paris Agreement to combat climate change; created executive orders that promote racial equality; stated that he will end Trumps U.S travel ban of Muslim countries; created an executive mask order on federal property; created an order that freezes all student loans for the time being; and has put the U.S on the track to have net-zero emissions by 2050, among other orders. 

However, in his less-than-50 days of executive control, there have been an estimated 62,400 Title 42 expulsions. According to The Poynter Institute, “Title 42 refers to a section of federal law that grants the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention the authority to deny entry to people coming from a country with an outbreak of an infectious disease. Expulsions under Title 42 are not based on immigration status and are tracked separately from immigration enforcement actions. People turned away under this rule are newly arriving; they are not necessarily people who have established lives in the United States.” 

In simple terms, there have been 62,400 people leaving the country in the month of January under this Title 42 rule established by the Trump Administration, but not all of them have been deported. Some just left on their own time. Biden originally promised in March 2020 during a democratic debate that there would be  ‘no deportations unless they have committed a felony.” In present, it is oddly suspicious that all of these people would leave on their own accord in a single month. Since ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) isn’t required to publish how many deportations there are in a day, we can’t specifically say that all of these people were deported or all of these people left on their own free will. “ICE data show that there have been around 28,700 deportations in fiscal year 2021 — but that includes aggregate data since October,” says the institute later in the article. 

Another promise that Biden made back in 2019 was ending “forever wars” or longstanding wars that have seen the death of thousands of soldiers and civilians. But an act that has been performed under the Biden Administration in the last week, or his 36th day as president, was a missile attack on Syria, another Middle-Eastern country that every president since the Sept. 11 attacks can’t seem to go without bombing or attacking in some way. This attack killed 22 people.

And that $2,000 stimulus check that the American people are in a desperate need for? This is just another example of a major promise in delayed action.

With Biden’s main promises all failing, what more of his promises are we not going to get? Whether you support Biden or you despise him, it is still important that you hold the president accountable. Families are still being separated by ICE, soldiers are still dying in these wars that Biden promised to end, people are struggling to keep up with bills due to losing their jobs because of Covid-19, as well as the American death toll due to Covid reaching 500,000,  and civilians dying in these missile attacks that Biden said he wouldn’t participate in. 

What has to happen to get somebody to run this country that will actually stand by their promises?