not give me back my son but i at least want to avoid one more child missing a single chemotherapy session and medical treatment. earlier this year doctors told us that her son's cancer was in remission but recently has discovered a new tumor and at mrs site she says the thought of dealing with drug shortages has multiplied her worries it's estimated that more than 1600 child cancer patients died in 2020 alone with some health experts suggesting a direct link to drug shortages across the country. the al-jazeera mexico city. your child is there with me still rob a reminder of all top stories the u.s. and nato say that after 20 years if god is than the ending the military campaign in a speech at the white house by the announcer all troops in afghanistan will be withdrawn by september the 11th we cannot continue the cycle of

extending or expanding our military presence in afghanistan hoping to create ideal conditions for the draw and expecting a different result and already have service members during a dude unit going to stand today whose parents served in the same or we have service members who are not yet born when our nation was attacked on 911 war in afghanistan was never meant to be a multi-generational undertaking we were attacked we went to war with clear goals rechy of those objectives the taliban has repeated warnings that it won't engage in talks until after all foreign troops have been withdrawal. the withdrawal of the foreign troops is our people's demand and this is something that we've fought for for the last 20 years this was always our objective at the

end of the day the withdrawal must take place changing the date is disappointing and unfortunate because we had an agreement with the united states and it was supported by the united nations as well as the neighboring and regional countries this was an agreement in the open and despite all that happened we are still asking for all the foreign troops to withdraw on the date that we all agreed upon and that will lead the way to solve all the problems that he'd if not we will face more problems for sure. demonstrators have been gathering in the u.s. state of minnesota for another night of protests after the police shooting of dante wright a female police officer has been charged with manslaughter also in minnesota the defense continued to make its case in the murder trial of former police officer trayvon a retired pathologist just testified that george floyd died because of multiple factors those are the headlines you follow stories on our website at al-jazeera dot com more news in half an hour next it's the bottom line do stay with us.

hi i'm steve clements and i have a question on immigration policy is rhetoric the only difference between joe biden and donald trump let's get to the bottom line. for a nation of immigrants it's a bit ironic that nothing divides america more than immigration the political debate on whether to allow more immigrants into the country especially from latin america can help a party win or lose an election former president to use the general anger of american workers to attack immigrants and demand that a wall be built between the united states and mexico paid for by mexico that didn't go very far but it helped him win in 2016 last year candidate joe biden ran on a more immigrant friendly platform which helped him win in 2020 but after

a surge of people wanting to cross the southern border this year we saw the same problems thousands of children arriving without their parents locked up in camps and $100000.00 arrests at the border in february and now almost $200000.00 in march the biden ministration says it wants total reform of immigration policy but what does that mean and can achieve that in a country that so deeply divided on these issues to find out we're talking to lorella priorly whose family came to the united states from peru when she was just a child and lived as an undocumented immigrant for years and years now she's fighting for immigrants as co-president of community change a national organization working for social justice and professor francisco gonzales who teaches about the politics and economics of latin america at the johns hopkins university here in washington d.c. thank you both for joining us today let me start with you lorella you know as we've been watching things unfold at the border but also watching the power. pics of the immigration debate play out in washington d.c.

i'm interested in what you would like to see in terms of rhetoric from president biden becoming real action on reforming immigration what would be the key pieces that would help you have confidence that this is ministration is going to be different than those who have come before it. such a good question steve because i think rhetoric is just the beginning of really shifting and shifting a story and telling the story about who we are and what we stand for as a country and what are the kind of policies that we're going to advance but here the biden administration really has an opportunity to deliver they have looked at latino voters and immigrant voters them being democrats for decades and promised to deliver on a path to citizenship for $11000000.00 what we're looking for and what would be a definitional moment for this administration and define early success and commitment on immigration would be for the administration and for congressional

democrats to legalize millions of people starting with the dream and promise act as well as the farm work force modernization act and to also in this critical moment take up legalization for essential workers so that the really the shift here and the measure of success in the coming months for this administration so that would be a more pragmatic track dr gonzalez i would like to ask you the same thing would you think you know if you look at you know some of the things that are driving you know the surge at the border but to look at how you know it's all relative said how do you make a pragmatic 1st step is it dreamers is it far more care is it essential workers do you see that as the way forward that might. i guess make the politics of this less toxic. thank you steve the i think one of the key things for me watching it in washington d.c. i've been based here 16 years and i've seen what a political football immigration policy is in the run up to elections both camps

republicans and democrats will kickoff that goal to energize the basis it is and will remain a very contentious issue i think it very clearly has struck the hearts and minds of many people is how many among the undocumented communities became essential workers during the 1900 mic crisis so let the north is panos on the comment that hispanos are overrepresented in terms of services regarding basically in hospitals in health care areas they are we are essential in farming in transportation transportation of basic goods and services that narrative i believe continues to be. known but i people who follow policy people who follow politics i believe that it would be very

important to remind people that even president rob who clearly did not like people like me but he got us in fact ended up in 2020 housing to say that there were many people among the hispanic community who had become essential service workers and without them the country would have not been able to just continue operating in basic things like food to live put production food delivery health care work imagine doing all the work that you know regarding cleaning up and cleaning up is done by hispanics that is something that the american public should know it's not necessarily you know as heroic cast having fought in the 2nd world war and beaten the german santa pan but this is something

that. i coax help to change the profile of the perception about hispanics as recent come hispanics as people who are really contributing existentially to the well being of the united states thank you i just read where you please quickly as because the question they are asking is what needs to happen to change the politics and i actually have to reject that a little better amended because i think that the politics are overwhelmingly in support of action and path to citizenship for millions of immigrants in this country that has been consistently true for a decade at this point it really is a matter of political will and political courage and here i would say that particularly as it relates to the situation at the border too many reporters and media pundits in particular have uncritically accepted right wing frames and republican talking points on migration on our southern border it's

a disservice to the public and at the end of the day the cost is really human lives so i top line message for biden and democrats is that they ran against the most anti immigrant can any of our lifetimes. and kennedy biden has the most progressive immigration platform in the history of presidential politics he is now the president he won and not only that the politics of immigration actually went but the kind of organizing on the ground led by immigrant communities helped to deliver the selection well let me. ask like the one you know i can see to the side that lost a limb let me let me ask you a question right i mean i think you make a great point but i was you know at a u.s. hispanic chamber of commerce meeting in 2016 jeb bush from that podium who is running for then the republican slot for president said i am a dreamer i am

a dreamer he aligned himself who on castro on the democratic side was there i heard john mccain in the past senator john mccain express that support i've heard many republicans talk about just as you did dreamers farm workers essential workers i have also seen something that was just released in the washington post an interesting surge of latina women support for the trump ticket when he was running so there seems to be a blurriness out there i mean i love the clarity you bring to it but i just sort of interested in the fact that there is a bipartisan. you know groundswell of support at some level for this and so i'm just wondering what has happened to that dimension and do you think that we have the right circumstances now to see real steps forward by the by even team in partnership with some of these republicans that have previously expressed support for a path to citizenship or dreamers and so on i do and we're going to give it

a go it's really a question republicans in congress are going to have to answer now what's happening the republican party i think is that being anti immigrant. is now part of how they win elections and so you've lost senators like john mccain and jeff flake who used to really drive this agenda for the republican party marco rubio has totally changed his position on immigration and he's inconsistent today with or he was in 2013 when we last went through a comprehensive round for immigration reform in the senate and so i think that the opportunity lies here but let me be clear about one thing which is that democrats have a number of other tools at their disposal if for publicans do not want to engage in bipartisan negotiation and conversation and real engagement to get this done that

democrats are not off the hook this year they can no longer go into 2022 next year and. and tell voters that they promised them they're going to promise again and then they're going to deliver in the next term it is no longer a credible argument so sure let's try for bipartisanship let's try to work on something with republicans in the next couple of months and if we can't get to an agreement with the other side then it is incumbent on it is critical for democrats to use every tool or to their disposal one of the tools that they have is the budget reconciliation process to try to life as many people as possible i'm interested in you know the other dimension of the story which is what's driving that surge of of of border traffic of refugees of those seeking asylum of those wanting to migrate to the u.s. and the biden administration jake sullivan has nashiri advisor and others have

talked very directly about our need to invest in central america to help try to stabilize those populations so tell us tell us where that is going on and how that's a part of this conversation. there's been many surveys steve there's a very salient one coal 'd city and on it i'm. making it making it through resilience. and these have been polling exercises in which upwards of 101-5000 people across the 3 main countries of immigration what the models are or young do to us have been carried out the topics that people report tend to be. you know can be concentrated aggregated into 3 or 4 main issues some of them are strictly related to under development what we would see in sub-saharan africa what we'd see

in parts of south asia southeast asia big families scarce resources high rates of teenage pregnancy mums that really have to reach find a way forward for their youngsters without any support others have to do with you know the idea of starting again a lot of people trying to lead central america because they and or people they know . people from the nuclear family or extended family are parked in parcel of what is a 990 s. became. really lawlessness very high rates of gang activity rates of crime and violence of human trafficking extortion you name it more recently experts have been. putting more

emphasis and this is borne out by the surveys people particularly people from the countryside seems pesants indigenous compazine was signed lower yields higher frequency extreme weather events last erasing their livelihoods so a majority of the migrants are really against the war for a variety of reasons and the thing that connects them with the united states is that a majority of them either have a family member or a people from europe wide networks who with with whom there is a connection and when. as you go along and i've seen it with. countless families right people obviously stop comparing how it's my cousin in michigan or in north carolina i'm married i'm doing compared to the cousins back here right now or even

something that i'm sure that as you can imagine the difference is incredible so people obviously are willing to risk their lives for themselves and the future generations and you cannot blame them for that. you know as you sort of look at the politics of this moment changing that you know and as i said i know that there are different tracks but it seems to be difficult to proceed even with the bits of legislation that are being broken down which you may find you know enough support on dreamers etc etc but that border story is still important what vice president camila harris has been assigned to do is important how do you think that fits into the story from your perspective. yeah that. i don't think it's that the politics are hard i keep going back to iraq only is a matter of focus and it is a matter of delivery and so on the border important to say 1st and foremost the

border is secure that cyclical increases in migration specifically a families and children have become the norm for decades because too many politicians have been more interested in playing politics to score points on border security right than actually addressing the underlying conditions contributing to it so you know the biden ministration has really stepped up to meet the smoke men swiftly really expanded the capacity to process families and children are arriving at the border what americans want is an orderly and fear and functional system that is going to take time but it is entirely possible and i think we're moving i would say along 3 key wrongs to get this done one is people are people must people who are legally trying to come to the u.s. for humanitarian relief or in search of a better life should be able to apply closer to their home countries as opposed to

. just at the border through the asylum system to witness that the administration needs to provide aid to the northern triangle and that will help improve conditions in that region it will reduce the factors driving people away from their homes to begin with and the 3rd here is that the u.s. has a role in leveraging its regional partnerships to expand refugee protections and overall resettlement across the hemisphere and that also improve conditions for people migrating so there is no fast way there is no quick. quick track to get this done the specially coming out of the trunk years when they really decimated and really destroyed our asylum system so that has. move on it's trapped and that work is going to be ongoing we've seen vice president harry say she's going to lead those talks in central america with our partners in that region and then the u.s. congress and president biden need to deliver that the longer that you keep this

peace issues a lot even under all the longer you're not really delivering on your commitments and your promise to legalize people to deliver on a path to citizenship and to people and it is a limbo status they've been in for decades before you go and i know you have to leave it early and we've insisted with francisco gonzalez but i want to ask you just one quick question you know in your experience with community change in the role that you play out there these kind of battles are either one where one side is trying to vanquish the other or you're trying to find commentary and bring that i'm interested in whether you're messaging how you've approached this issue of immigration thinking about what the legislative practice how have you found republican allies either behind the scenes or overtly of you know above the scenes that are willing to come along with you. right now or in past what any time what would be models of seducing the other side to to move along with what you

see is a more sensible immigration policy yeah i mean in general i think that when you lean into the stories when you lean into the people that we're talking about the conversation changes because you're talking about real people i grew up as an undocumented person in this country my sister is a doctor recipient now and so it's not i don't talk about the 600000 young people who have dhaka i think about my sister and what it means for her every day to live with that kind of uncertainty and i know that our congress can deliver in this moment and really it is a question for republicans is this all rhetoric is it just key to their political relevance and an existence or are they willing to deal are they willing to say will recognize that we have a role to govern here that is why we come to washington d.c. that's why america sends us here or why they continue to lacked you know make some

show trips to the border or will they actually do their job and i am not holding my breath but i am working with a coalition that is engaging republicans senate moderate democrats and the rest of the democratic caucus to get this done this year we're going to continue our conversation with professor gonzales but we know you have to go kneller l.s.o. thanks for being with us the rela priorly co-president of community change thanks for your thoughts professor gonzales i'd love to get back for a moment to the root causes and how what the president is for the united states my good friend arturo valens whalen who used to be assistant secretary for latin america used to tell me said we try hard to get earnest direct sensible u.s. foreign policy toward latin america but when you compare that to looking at china. russia europe asia latin america always comes out to be the sort of

orphan in those subjects the one dealt with the last and so i guess my question is given the legacy of american foreign policy in the region that has not put latin america 1st and foremost you know and you've talked about root causes a bit how do we have to square that and bring that around given the fact that we've never really been that good at latin american foreign policy. very good point steve in foreign policy cycles among scolar solving international relations the international politics one of the saying cease you know latin america is traditionally perceived us as the bought yog of the united states that's not the only reason why the u.s. you know considers it a secondary importance the key issue is we don't have nukes so if any of the countries in the region had nukes or states us in policy making cycles in washington we would go out i don't know if i would subscribe to then you know

counseling any leaders in latin america it's not developing nukes but your point is well taken you know america is and has been an area where the us tench to enact policies in not reactive way it tends to react to developments in the region and this is a region which to start with is correct there iced by incredible socio economic inequality the case of central america in particular is very telling here we have some of the most on equal societies in the hemisphere steve and the u.s. is by components a lot the problem because since the latter part of the 19th century whoever was in power progressives republicans democrats. all of the time u.s. policy was geared to support and keep in place the very small

economic political elite these are only got kick societies that means rule by a handful of families and these handful this handful have managed to reproduce themselves in time and continue to be inside although they say it's 14 you know good as they say it's 7 or 8 that there's no real number we know it's very few but one of the key things is that us policy kept them in power through their collaboration with u.s. business interests the interest regarding the banana tree the coffee trade big plantation not recall ciar so this is this is a problem which has very deep roots east structural and you're not going to see these oligarchies these few families. you know in you know in like 10 to man are

giving up power or wanting to share power they're not going to do that. they continue to be among the most reactionary in latin america they're not the only ones but central america and some among the caribbean the poorest countries are among the worst so i think i wish i could say this is about engagement and if the u.s. puts together a program of 10 or $15000000000.00 we can start addressing the root causes. i wish i could say that's good and that's tension the net necessary and sufficient it's necessary it's nowhere sufficient because what you have is much more often than not great leakage leakage meaning whatever foreign aid comes in whatever investment comes in is going to be monopolized by these mammary theme crossed right of at least families where you don't have states which strong redistributive

capacity you don't have infrastructure public goods right kind of people to connect with one another to find jobs it to try to better themselves through education all of that is very very very weak yes a us cannot just just just put it right and created on that sober note francisco gonzales associate professor of latin american politics at the johns hopkins university thanks so much for being with us today so what's the bottom line for years americans heard from donald trump and politicians like him that immigrants are a threat they're taking your jobs they're criminals he said and now guess what that's what many of them believe the question is will biden do what he said he would do giving millions of undocumented immigrants who have lived here since they were kids a real path to citizenship and figuring out a way to allow more folks whether seeking asylum or refugees or workers students or tourists into america and can he do that when he faces opposition not only from the

republican party but members of his own democratic party the statue of liberty says give me your tired your poor your huddled masses yearning to breathe free if the united states is to restore its global leadership biden is going to have to find a way to win this one and that's the bottom line. a lot of the stories that we cover all highly complex so it's very important that we make it was understandable as we can do as many people as possible no matter how

much they know about a given crisis choice issue oh lots of stuff so i did this earlier the smell of death is overpowering as al-jazeera correspondents that's what we strive to do. when the covert 900 undemocratic iran. a filmmaker cut the drift from his crew began documenting life from them up down a made on goal of international sanctions. an intimate portrayal of isolation in one of the world's least understood countries coronavirus locked down iran people in power on a. 3 year investigation into the pro-gun lobby have been employing it was moving to god it really 9 years to. reveal secrets the one message being out there i mean people out there you know mad and connection some don't want to expose many in

legacy media. mass shooting. documents like night al-jazeera investigations how to sell a massacre on al-jazeera. what you have is there with me so wrong in doha a reminder of our top news stories the u.s. and nato say that after 20 years in afghanistan ending their military campaign in a speech at the white house joe biden announced all troops in afghanistan will be withdrawn by september the 11th our white house correspondent can really help get us more after generation of war in afghanistan u.s. president joe biden says it's time for american soldiers to return home we cannot continue.