What does a democratically controlled Senate mean for Joe Biden's immigration policies? Hi, I'm Jim Hacking, immigration lawyer, practicing law throughout the United States at our office here in St. Louis, Missouri. I am fired up. I am fired up because the Democrats have taken control of the House and the Senate, which means that immigration reform big and small is possible. We'll see what happens. For the next two years, president-elect Joe Biden will have a friendly democratically controlled Senate and house of representatives. With the runoff elections in Georgia on Monday, Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock got elected to the US Senate to represent the good old state of Georgia, the heart of Dixie. It's really amazing that Stacey Abrams and all the great volunteers and all the African American voters, especially were able to elect two Democrats two the US Senate. Not only did they elect two Democrats, they also threw out two Republican bums, Kelly Loffler and David Perdue, who both ran on anti-immigrant pro-Trump approaches and who, it's alleged, made a ton of money with secret insider information that they obtained by being US senators.
We're glad to see them go. We're glad to see young Jon Ossoff and Reverend Warnock get elected to the US Senate. What that means is there's a 50/50 tie in the Senate and because there's a 50/50 tie in the Senate, vice president, Kamala Harris will be the tie breaker, which means that the Democrats have effective control over the House and the Senate. What does this mean for immigration? What it means is that Joe Biden is not going to have to deal with two years of obstruction from Mitch McConnell. It means that they're not going to be, the Republicans are not going to be able to stymie immigration reform. I think we can expect a dream act making its way through Congress in relatively short order. I think that even Republicans will support it. I think it's something that now with a democratically controlled House and Senate, that we can really look forward to allowing the dreamers to come out of the shadows and to get on a path to citizenship.
No longer will we be stuck with DACA and executive action. We'll actually have immigration reform. It may be small at first and then we'll see. The margins are razor thin. The Democrats lost seats in the house and they have a barest of majorities in the Senate, but that's a huge difference. It means that Democrats will be in charge of committees. There'll be able to set the agenda and Joe Biden's agenda will be pushed through. Joe Biden, of course, ran on a very different platform than Donald Trump and immigration reform is at the top of the list. Don't expect everything to happen overnight, but we do think that at least with the dreamers, for those who came here at a young age and have lived good lives and not gotten in any trouble, but they're going to be able to come out of the shadows and get some kind of legal immigration status in the United States.
Hopefully, that'll be expanded to comprehensive immigration reform, but I think it will be done piecemeal and I'm looking forward to the opportunity. Look for that, that hopefully now that once things calm down at the US Capitol and we have a new president and a new Congress, that there's going to be a real chance for change during these next two years. We can't forget the president Obama had two years of his own with a democratically controlled Congress, and he decided to focus on the Affordable Care Act. We anticipate that immigration will be part of a broad swath of change that Joe Biden's going to bring as president of these here, United States. Thanks everybody. Looking forward to it. Looking forward to the new year and we'll see you next time. Thanks a lot. Oh, I forgot to mention you should join our Facebook group, which is called Immigrant Home.
You can give us a call at (314) 961-8200. You can email us at [email protected]. You can follow me on Instagram at Hacking Immigration Law, LLC. You can also subscribe to our YouTube channel, so that whenever we make a video like this one, you get updated. Then of course, every Tuesday and Thursday at noon central, most times, unless I'm at immigration court or immigration, you can get ahold of us and ask me a question for free. We have an hour long show where I just answer straight question. Hope to see you there. Thanks a lot. Have a great day.
