PRESIDENT-elect Joe Biden has been blasted for pushing forward “a pathway to citizenship for over 11million undocumented people” in the United States.
Nicole Malliotakis, a newly-elected representative from Staten Island, New York, told Fox News on Wednesday it’s “disheartening that this is his focus.”
“It’s not providing relief to the millions of Americans that are struggling right now, during this pandemic,” she said.
“It’s not ensuring that we help those small businesses that are hanging on by a thread due to government restrictions and mandated shutdowns.
“It’s not how are we going to get this vaccine distributed to our front-line workers and our most vulnerable across the states.”
Malliotakis said it’s “actually a policy that would help the citizens of other countries and not Americans.”
She added she feels “it’s very sad that he wants to dismantle the policies put in place by President Trump that have been effective in stemming the tide of illegal immigration.”
During an interview with NBC News this week, Biden said as soon as he takes off, he’ll work with the Senate to pass an immigration bill.
“Some of it’s gonna depend on the kinda cooperation I can or cannot get from the United States Congress,” Biden said.
The control of the Senate depends on two run-off elections in Georgia, both of which will take place in January.
If Democrats win those two elections, Democrats will have majority control over both chambers of Congress, in addition to the White House.
This week, Biden announced he was nominating Alejandro Mayorkas to run the Department of Homeland Security.
Mayorkas served under former President Barack Obama as deputy secretary of homeland security and director of the Citizenship and Immigration Services.
If confirmed by the Senate, Mayorkas would be the first Hispanic and the first immigrant to lead the department, which was founded in response to 9/11.
“When I was very young, the United States provided my family and me a place of refuge,” Mayorkas said this week.
“Now, I have been nominated to be the DHS Secretary and oversee the protection of all Americans and those who flee persecution in search of a better life for themselves and their loved ones.”
Mayorkas, whose mother is a Holocaust survivor, came to the United States in 1960 as his parents fled the Cuban Revolution and settled in Southern California.
Mayorkas ran the citizenship agency within DHS from 2008 to 2013, developing the program to shield from deportation people who had been brought to the US illegally as minors, a program Trump has sought to end.
Congresswoman-elect Malliotakis, daughter to a Greek dad and Cuban mom, said that Biden will “get a fight from the Republicans in Congress, who are very much pleased with the progress we’ve made under President Trump and don’t want to unravel that.”
The president-elect made combatting the coronavirus a key part of his campaign and on Wednesday during a Thanksgiving address, said: “I know the country has grown weary of the fight.”
“We need to remember we’re at war with the virus, not with one another. Not with each other.”
Biden’s will take the oath of office on January 20.
