Towards the abrupt end of the American dream

With 22 million more unemployed because of the coronavirus pandemic, U.S. President Donald Trump has found the best excuse to relaunch his famous slogan from his first election campaign, "America First," an emblem that also summarizes his nationalist retreat, canceling in one fell swoop the greatness of a country seen as the closest incarnation of the land of paradise, that which was known as the American dream. 

As usual, Trump used a tweet to announce his intention to "temporarily suspend" all immigration to the United States. The text, released at 4:06 a.m. this Tuesday (Spanish time), calls the coronavirus the "Invisible Enemy", and justifies the measure in advance on the need to protect the jobs of the "BIG American citizens", yes, with all the capital letters. 

This movement is clearly a political operation of marked electoral tint, just when relations between the White House and not a few governors of the states that are part of the Federation have become tense. Trump is demanding the immediate lifting of the lockdown and the recovery of economic activity throughout the country, on the pretext that the damage he expects to be caused by the lockdown will be significantly worse, in his view, than the damage caused by the virus. The opposition of many of these governors to the lifting of the restrictions, in view of the uncontrollable advance of contagion and the increased number of deaths worldwide, has reached the point of a clash of legitimacy: Donald Trump claiming total power to decree measures for the whole territory, and the governors taking advantage of their "indeclinable powers" in their respective states. 

Encouraged by the president himself, popular demonstrations in several of them, such as Virginia and Indiana, demanding freedom of movement and work, have led to a growing polarization of the country and a significant decline in the polls of Donald Trump in the face of the still distant election day on November 3. But the alert has been sounded with enough force to announce a measure as forceful as a total ban on immigration. 

In spite of the fact that this is a temporary measure, it is very difficult to reverse it and, when it is done, it is very slow, since, if politics is the main motivation to decree them, politics is also, but with many supporters and detractors already confronted, to return to the old normality fully accepted and assumed. 

This is therefore one of the greatest and most far-reaching changes the world will ever encounter in the post-pandemic era. Achieving the famous Green Card, a document that allows people to live and work in the United States, has been the dream of tens of millions of men and women from all latitudes, from great researchers to sportsmen and women, as well as the very many workers who, thanks to taking on the most thankless tasks, have gone from the misery and lack of future in their respective countries to developing their talent, prospering and, in short, being able to justify to themselves the why and what for of their existence. 

These much sought-after documents were already in decline, from 618,000 green cards granted in 2016, still with Barack Obama in power, to 462,000 in 2019. Temporary work visas had also contracted by 16% in the same period. The decree announced by Trump may give them the final blow, taking advantage of the fact that the borders of the United States are right now closed to Europeans, Chinese and Iranians, and just opened for some exceptions with Canada and Mexico, and when illegal immigration from the south of the continent is practically non-existent, thanks to the agreements of containment and confinement in their countries of origin, signed by the United States with the countries of Central America. 

For people so different and with such diverse ambitions and origins, the United States was the final horizon, the paradise with which Hollywood spurred the American dream, capable of provoking the most intense emotions and desires in a large part of humanity. It will thus be one of the great global victims of this crisis.