Donald Trump’s draconian plan to round up 11 million undocumented immigrants and deport them suggests turning America into a police state and likely confronting strong resistance from their families and friends, reports Dennis J Bernstein.
By Dennis J Bernstein
If Donald Trump is serious about trying to deport many if not all of the 11 million undocumented immigrants in the United States, he may face much more resistance than he expects, as I witnessed during a post-election protest by some 50 young Latino students who took their anti-Trump chants to San Francisco’s bustling Mission District.
I spoke with them aboard a city bus on the way to a march and spontaneous all-city student protest at City Hall. I got a sense of their fear and their commitment. They were focused and clear about what was on their minds.
President-elect Donald Trump in an MSNBC interview.
Some were undocumented, or had parents and friends and relatives who were undocumented. Some people whom they knew had already gone into hiding. But the students voiced a fierce determination to say no to Trump who they said had repeatedly degraded their families, the entire Mexican race and every Muslim in America.
I spoke first to Gabriella, a high school senior at City Arts and Technology. She was carrying a sign that said, “We will not go along with fascism.” She angrily asserted, “We’re doing this in protest of the election of Donald Trump. Our schools are all gathering to protest about this. We’ve been talking about it since […] the election. We are very upset and we will not continue to be oppressed by the system, and by a man that targets immigrants, people of color, and poor people. I’m afraid that it will affect everybody I know. …
“Not only the minorities, but everybody. He doesn’t have the requirements to be a president. He’s a corrupt man that should not be president. Personally I have a lot of family members that do not have papers, but they are good people and they work hard to be citizens. It’s not fair for a man to try to deport them.”
I asked Gabriella what she would be doing if this was just a regular day in her life. “I would be studying, working hard,” she said. “I want to be a nurse. I want to be somebody to make my family proud and provide for my family. We all just want to be good people and work hard.”
Then I spoke with Hyro Kirk, a senior at the June Jordan School for Equity, named after the late poet and award-winning African-American essayist, June Jordan. “I’m on this bus going to City Hall to make people feel safe in the city, because I don’t think people should be scared,” Kirk said.
I asked the high school senior if he too has friends and family who are now frightened. He answered: “Yes, people are expressing their fears all the time. And it scares me because, my family, some of them don’t have papers. And I don’t want to see them going back to a country that’s like a third world country. I just feel like this shouldn’t be happening to Latinos who helped build this country.”
I asked Maylee Rubio, another June Jordan senior, what she felt about the election of Trump and why it had happened. She said, “I feel really disgusted and offended that he has the nerve to call us illegal immigrants, rapists, drug dealers. It’s just disgusting how he sees America like that. I worry about my family … and a lot of my friends, because a lot of my family is undocumented. And they came from one of the most dangerous places in Mexico. And if they go back I’m afraid for their lives.”
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers arresting suspects during a raid in 2010. (Photo Courtesy of ICE)
Ben Rosen, a 12th-grade teacher at City Arts and Tech who accompanied the students. Said he joined them on their walkout because “I can’t sit back while this is going on. … I was horrified by the results of the election. I work with these kids day in and day out and it’s what gives me hope. They are the most beautiful, righteous, intelligent people I know. And I refuse to get used to whatever this new norm is supposed to be. And this is what gives me hope, these youth.”
I asked Rosen how the Trump victory affected the dialogue in the classroom and his ability to teach. “Well,” he said, “my students are scared. People are really scared and not sure where to go from here. And I think it’s our job as educators not to be neutral, to take a stand. This is not a time to stand back and be on the sidelines. This is a time to help our students understand the danger that’s real, and empower them to stand up for themselves. It’s the only thing that’s going to actually make a difference, now.”
One student, who preferred we not use her name, added “The whole controversial issue that the immigrants take jobs from Americans … is not true,” she said. “We actually help and create more jobs for a variety of different people. And, for me, what really gets me really, really angry is that they’re telling us we have a choice [about whether to leave our countries or not]. We don’t choose to be here. We leave, our parents leave our homelands, to create a better future. Because in our homelands there’s lots of violence and things that we have to run away from,” she said. “If it wasn’t for our parents moving here, who knows, we might not even be alive at this point in time.”
She concluded, “I just want to say a couple last words to the Trump supporters, to everyone who voted for Trump. I wanted them to know that this is not their country. Before America came along, this was Mexico’s land. Before the Europeans came on this land, it was Native Americans’ land. This is not your country, so stop thinking you can just run us over like that.”
During the march, another student had a brief exchange with an angry white male Trump supporter. When I spoke with her afterwards, she said, “What they don’t know, or seem to care about is that they’re breaking families apart. Families are fleeing back to their countries where it is dangerous. Their kids are terrified, everybody is terrified … but we’re not going to keep taking this anymore. We’re through with this. We don’t want Trump as the president. He’s only representing the One Percent. All these minorities out here are fighting back. We will be resilient and fight back until our voices are heard.”
If Trump thinks that it will be easy to round up what he calls the “bad hombres” and the rest of the 11 million undocumented immigrants, he may discover that many of them — and their families and friends — believe this land is just as much their land as it is his land.
Dennis J Bernstein is a host of “Flashpoints” on the Pacifica radio network and the author of Special Ed: Voices from a Hidden Classroom. You can access the audio archives at www.flashpoints.net.
Wow, same “quality” reporting as all the Zio-news outlets. Never have I heard mention of mass round up of illegal immigrants (not undocumented, go to Mexico illegally and chances are you will never be heard from again, and you definitely wouldn’t be referred to as undocumented). Its called if/when one is arrested or whatever, then start deportation proceeding, AS PER US IMMIGRATION LAW.
I have read a related article about this… http://www.charleskurmay.com/could-donald-trump-really-become-the-president/. It was written by a respected attorney and he said that Trump could implement mass deportation using the legal system citing Korematsu vs. United States during Roosevelt’s time. Is there a truth to this?
“Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s chairman, Dave Archambault II, released a statement that said, ‘Although the news is saddening, it is not at all surprising given the last 500 years of the treatment of our people. We have suffered much, but we still hope that the President will act on his commitment to close the chapter of broken promises to our people and especially our children.” – http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/11/30/standing-rock-determining-president-obamas-legacy-to-all-americans/
The US government does not discriminate against ethnic groups when it come to protecting the economic interests of its major corporations. All groups, including Hispanics, have equal opportunities to become Wall Street’s victims
Every one should stand with the protesters at Standing Rock Camp!
Sheriff’s Dept Demands ACE Hardware Stop Selling Heating Supplies to Water Protectors, ACE Complies
I’m afraid that my local ACE hardware is going to see a lot less of me. I can’t avoid them 100%, but that’s still going to be my goal.
http://www.activistpost.com/2016/11/sheriffs-dept-demands-ace-hardware-stop-selling-heating-supplies-water-protectors-ace-complies.html
Pond scum law enforcement and heavily armed corporate mercenaries and a GOP governor makes for a toxic mix. Corporate ACE Hardware just had to tag along.
To all of the commentators above who have suggested improving the living conditions of people south of the border as a resolution of our immigration dilemma, thank you.
Perhaps if George Soros hadn’t gone broke financing Jill Stein’s election recounts he could have chipped in a few bucks to help improve the economies in Central America.
Improving the living conditions of people south of the border is probably the best resolution to our immigration dilemma, but it will not happen in my lifetime, nor is it likely to happen in the lifetimes of people half my age. The immoral predators worshiping at Mammon’s temple on Wall Street and their acolytes in cathedrals scattered around Latin America are not likely to change their systems. At the same time their accomplices in the Republican and Democratic party oligarchies will provide the weaponry and military advisers to serve as did Major General Smedley Butler who described his career thus: “I spent most of my time being a high class muscle-man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers.” This will ensure the downtrodden remain in their historical roles. If they are able to survive the hazards of the northward migration to escape their miseries they will do so, and our immigration quandary will continue.
Soros definitely didn’t go broke, and do you really think he would help anyone other than himself? After all, he is the king of collapsing currency, funding “color” revolutions in order to install NWO puppets and paying out of town agitators (criminals & thugs) to burn down black communities.
Then there is the issue of sovereignty and what are the benefits of sovereign nations and what powers should sovereign nations have. Is immigration one of them? I think so.
But the issue of sovereignty goes beyond Latins to our policies worldwide. We grant ourselves the right to intrude on sovereignty in the Middle East, willingly fragmenting existing nations and promoting violence with the borders of those countries to shape the region to our liking.
For those well meaning persons among us, there seems to be a sense that people can simply move across borders as if they were in the United States. Unfortunately for many of them they were born on the wrong side of the Rio Grande. That struck me when I was in the army in the 50’s. Entering at night, we went from the bright lights of Del Rio, Texas, to the dimly lit town that was then called Villa Cuna(phonetic Cunya) where little boys pimped for their older sisters.
What is the answer? If the United States wants to address the immigration problem beyond controlling the borders, which it should, work with the Mexican Government to raise the standard of living there. If there were jobs in Mexico, I doubt Mexicans would even want to come to the United States. And do a better job of policing employers who use undocumented workers.
And who hasn’t noticed how hard working those coming to the United States are? Often claims that they are taking jobs from Americans are phony. No one wants the jobs they do or to work as hard doing them.
So control our borders. Penalize employers who knowingly use undocumented workers. Help raise the standard of living to our South and remember those who are allowed to come to the US to work are good, hard working people whose rights should be respected.
“So control our borders.”
Yes, but mostly because of terrorism, not illegals. Making employment impossible for the illegals ought to effectively stop them from coming. I’d make repeated instances of rudeness of border guards a firing offense.
“
PenalizeHammer employers who knowingly use undocumented workers.”My own preferred “frill” with this is that they pay for a first-class airline ticket to send the “undocumented worker or workers” back home.
“Help raise the standard of living to our South and remember those who are allowed to come to the US to work are {probably} good, hard working people whose rights should be respected.”
Perhaps there will be an occasional or even seasonal need for “guest workers”. To help ensure this “need” isn’t exaggerated, enact legislation that the “guests” will be paid minimum wage with time-and-a-half overtime, and their compensation would include clean and secure living facilities and nutritious and adequate meals. The latter things needn’t be fancy, – a simple wooden barracks with a small cooking/cleaning staff would suffice. I don’t want the “guests” to become the preferred source of workers for employers.
If you want to stop terrorism, stop creating terrorists by bombing their countries.
By the way, you are far more likely to be killed by your own furniture than a terrorist, and even then, the bigger problem is home-grown terrorism from white-wing militias than the spectre of foreign terrorists. And you are far, far more likely to be killed by a cop.
If you want to make sure Americans are taken care of, a National Minimum Income would do that (~50k a year for every US Citizen over the age of 18, before any other earnings they make on top of that.). Pay for it with sales tax on stock and derivative trades, making the capital gains tax higher than the tax on earned income, and increase the top marginal tax rate to 95% on any income over 2 million a year (much like it was at the very time in History that the ” Make America Great Again” crowd uses as its frame of reference.)
My favorite!
A suggestion I’d like to put out is to have a 100% estate tax on amounts exceeding $10 million per child (inflation adjusted for 2016). Underage children would be exempt for education (continuing to 5 years at the university) and other necessary care until they became adults, at which time they’d get access to their $10 million.
Mexico’s culture came from Spain, and America’s from England. The reason Mexico can’t get anywhere is a very common one. A few people have everything and the rest nothing, and the few keep it that way.
Webster Tarpley is right. It’s actually a very great asset that MILLIONS of immigrants are still interested in coming here, legal or otherwise (sign’em up, get’em on the citizens’ roll, create jobs ala Sam Parry’s Green New Deal, screw the blood-sucking TBTF banks, screw the Berlin Wall of the southwest, save the citizens). Contrary to “population explosions”, advanced developed Countries are experiencing a population decline and aging crisis. It seems like development is the key to population reduction, like R. Buckminster Fuller said decades ago.
Brad Owen – “It’s actually a very great asset that MILLIONS of immigrants are still interested in coming here…” A great asset for who? People whose jobs depend on these immigrants? Immigration lawyers, realtors, community organizers, churches, contractors? Does the guy who has to compete with them for a job feel the great asset? Does the planet/nature feel it?
As I said above, there doesn’t need to be a wall built. Just enforce the law against employers hiring them, and they’ll turn around and go home.
Thank goodness developed countries are experiencing a population decline. It’s called intelligence. The last thing the world needs is more people. It’s hard to believe there are still people out there who think that if there’s an empty space, it ought to be filled up. Every country’s population should be declining. But, like with everything else, it won’t be addressed until there’s an absolute crisis. Cheap, abundant oil is what allowed the population of the world to increase exponentially, and of course it’s going to overshoot.
Think it through.
That’s why we needed a New Deal Administration in place to do these things the right way, prevailing wages for all, easy citizenship, getting them on the tax rolls, and a Marshall Plan for all nations south of the border, especially Mexico and Central America, to correct all the problems we caused them over many decades, especially siding with THEIR oligarchs (they’re more eat up with ruling class shenanigans than we are, which is another BIG reason things can’t be improved there; we ought to side with the people there, which will happen we have a government that sides with the people HERE), which will naturally reduce immigrant flow. In reality there is more work that needs doing in this country than what we have available in the labor pool to do it. And no they will NOT just go home, they’ll go black market, they’ll resist bitterly; ANOTHER reason that will just bring on a police state. Better to legalize them and make them into tax-paying citizens.
And no, the population reduction is due to the modern welfare state, relieving the traditional pressure of having many kids in the hopes that a few of them will survive to adulthood and take care of you in your old age, the old-fashion “safety net”. Intelligence has very little to do with it, just self interest and old-fashioned selfishness, wisely used for policy advantage in reducing populations.
And finally; an asset for who? They are great assets for OUR Nation. It is long past time to recognize that the National Treasure, the wealth of all nations everywhere, is a well-trained, well-organized, productive and creative modern LABOR FORCE. Period. Lincoln proved it with Greenbacks (monetized credit; “I’ll gladly pay you Tues. for a hamburger today” and I come back with a fine stove and a side of beef for you). We don’t need parasitical Rentiers with their money/debtor rackets, and their gold and silver illusions. And our Labor “National Bank Account” keeps expanding while the rest of the advanced nations “National Labor Bank Accounts” are shrinking.
Reread Buckminster Fuller, population decline is due to universal access to cheap electricity. Full Stop.
To put it in layman’s terms, when people have something to do after dark other than just fucking, they stop having so many babies.
Otherwise, you are right on, and the only sane commenter I have seen in this thread so far, thank you for that.
Very well put. Please see my comments above on the moral vs. property arguments, the responsibility to eliminate poverty in this hemisphere. All of this can be done while improving the security of the unfortunate in the US.
We much undervalue the luxurious wealth of knowing that one is doing the right thing for humanity for all time, which is the greatest wealth one can have, quite as enjoyable while living modestly.
We need leaders who will reject the hollow shams of wealth and live modestly while working for the good of all humanity.
That is why we have guest worker programs and visa’s. Also people waiting to come here legally.
The illegals say they are good and hard-working people. I have no doubt they are. What I can’t understand, though, is why they don’t stay in their own country and try to make it better. They are obviously patriotic, waving around the Mexican flag, so why leave the country you love without trying to help it?
And notice that they’re not heading south to escape to so-called safety; they’re coming north to where the jobs are. They work for cash, their kids are educated for free, and they send home money in the form of remittances. During 2014, $25 billion made its way back to Mexico in the form of remittances (money sent back home to family members). $25 billion in one year! So in a way the U.S. is propping up not only its own country’s citizens, but Mexico’s too.
And the law that says that any baby born on U.S. soil is an automatic U.S. citizen is an open invitation to the dance, it seems to me. “Come on in, have your baby, all expenses paid, and you’re good to go.” The Chinese are currently taking advantage of this law too, flying in, having the baby, and then flying back out.
There are existing laws on the books to penalize employers who hire illegals, but they aren’t enforced. If they were enforced and the illegals couldn’t get work, they would simply turn around and go back home. There would be no need for a wall and no need to deport them. They’d go back home on their own.
Why don’t they stay to change their governments?
Perhaps because they, unlike you, have looked at the history of the last 200 years, where every single time they have tried to do so, the US has come in and destroyed what they accomplished. Look at US support for Arbenz, Pinochet, the Contras, Plan Columbia, Martelly, Temer, etc ad nauseum.
History has shown them the only way for them to change their government is to change the US government to one that allows them to change their own government. Too bad Americans do not have a clue as to what their government has done.
The illegals say they are good and hard-working people. I have no doubt they are. What I can’t understand, though, is why they don’t stay in their own country and try to make it better.
I’ll hazard a guess on this. Perhaps they have seen too many people who have tried what you suggest be assassinated by government-supported death squads. ” Berta Cáceres, Honduran human rights and environment activist, murdered: Cáceres, who was awarded the Goldman Environmental Prize for her opposition to one of Central America’s biggest hydropower projects, was shot at home” – https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/03/honduras-berta-caceres-murder-enivronment-activist-human-rights – The current government in Honduras is the result of a right-wing coup approved by President Obama and then-secretary of state Hillary Clinton.
As bad as conditions are in Honduras, El Salvador may be a worse basket case.
Isn’t it odd how undocumented people will come to the U.S. illegally and then tell the U.S. how to run the country, but they don’t do that in the country they left?
Why don’t you think if you break the law coming here, forging papers, telling us what you will or won’t allow, that you are not creating the same type of country you left? Our prisons are full of gang members, our countrysides full of drug cartel implants that poison the animals, slash the forests, ruin the water flows. There are Drunk Drivers that can
just run back to their own country if they kill some one, or shoot someone, etc. The undocumented come from as far away as Bulgaria.
There are many hardworking, honest good immigrants but it starts with coming here legally.
I don’t know of any safe, well run country that just lets in anybody that chooses to sneak in.
What if I came to your house while you were out working hard and I moved in? And then I said I don’t like your Papa so he has to get out! That’s what undocumented people are saying.
It is not the fault of the citizens that you, or a family member broke the law.
Hopefully a good solution can be found not to break up families, but I don’t think you should be telling us
you are going to cause trouble in the U.S. if we don’t pick who you want for president
You want to live here because of the rules and safety, but then, tell us what rules or presidents we can have,
Why aren’t you upset with Hillary? If she and the DNC had run a honest and fair campaign Bernie Sanders would most likely be president.
We the citizens didn’t bring this problem to your country you brought it to ours!
You were doing alright until you wrote this:
“We the citizens didn’t bring this problem to your country you brought it to ours!”
We may quibble about the “we the citizens” part, but our government has most certainly brought this mess to their countries via the drug war, NAFTA, anti-communist proxy wars, and any number of other nefarious policies.
Again, I must ask, are you referring to the wave of illegal and univited Europeans who have come here, destroyed our rivers and our forests and our buffalo, and tried to tell us how to live?
If so, we are in agreement.
However, if you are talking about those who come from Latin America, where for a very long time, every attempt to change their government to work for them has been violently surpressed by US trained and funded forces, the I can only suggest that you learn a bit of history so you at least have some idea of what you are talking about, before you make an even bigger fool of yourself.
I by no means let Hitlery off the hook here, as, for instance, as Sec of State, she took a leading role in the coup in Honduras, which directly led to the wave of child refugees tecently, and she also was an ardent supporter of NAFTA, which flooded the market with cheap corn (subsidized by US taxpayers) that decimated the Mexican agricultural sector, forcing countless farmers iff their land and sparking another large wave if immigration.
Immigration does not happen in a vaccuum, unlike the statements that emanate from your head.
My great Grandfather was full blooded Cherokee, They didn’t go to Canada illegally and demand Canada
Change their laws and get rid of the Prime Minister.
Your insults do not change the fact that there are many South of the Border waiting to come here LEGALLY.
Yes we have done much wrong as a Nation that WE need to fix. Others need to fix their Nations.
San Francisco just asked tax payers for 5 million dollars for Attorneys to help the undocumented.
Where is the 5 million for homeless Vets? Or for the hungry lined up at the food banks?
Before you tell me I don’t know anything about San Francisco, I was Born and raised there, so was my Mother
and Grandmother. My Great Grandfather was from Tennessee.
Jerry Brown tells us we don’t have any water but we have room for another 1 million people. really?
http://sanfranciscopolice.org/most-wanted
Welcome to the San Francisco Police Department’s Northern California Most Wanted page, where you can provide critical crime-solving help.
There is no plan to round up any 11 million people so the entire premise of this piece is faulty. Very disappointed to read such mendacious, infantile and low material on this website.
The use of the term undocumented is cultural Marxism at it’s low and despicable worst. It sickens me that there are people who will try to propose that people should be able to enter a nation illegally BREAK THE LAW during their uninvited and illegal visit and still stay in the place they had no right to be in the first place. Disgusting.
The concept of rights and law you refer to is in error. The economic and nationality advantages of the US are not the result of virtue, but of circumstances largely beyond individual control. Laws of property do not consider how it was gained, and so do not constitute moral arguments for policy.
You should correct these assertions:
1. The article does not claim a plan for 11 million immigrants.
2. The term “undocumented” has no relationship to Marxism, and mere denigration of that is propaganda for selfishness.
3. You make no moral argument against elimination of the causal circumstances of poverty.
The fortunate must reflect upon moral foundations instead of looking for excuses for selfishness. When you look upon the unfortunate, recall as Bradford said, that “There but for the grace of God [or good luck] go I.”
Wealth and fortunate nationality confer responsibilities, not privileges.
When you say:
“It sickens me that there are people who will try to propose that people should be able to enter a nation illegally BREAK THE LAW during their uninvited and illegal visit and still stay in the place they had no right to be in the first place. Disgusting.”
Are you referring to the savagely genocidal Europeans who came here uninvited, and are currently violating both North Dakota and Treaty law (along with many others) by trying to poison the drinking water if 18 million people?
I would agree, then, that what the illegal European immigrants have been doing since they arrived here uninvited a few hundred years ago is quite disgusting.
From Ilana Novick / AlterNet 11/14/16:
Just in case you thought that the long national nightmare was over, Trump appeared on “60 Minutes” Sunday night to remind America he’s committed to deporting at least 2-3 million undocumented immigrants. In an interview at Trump Tower with “60 Minutes” correspondent Lesley Stahl….”
From ABC News:
How many people have been deported under Obama?
President Barack Obama has often been referred to by immigration groups as the “Deporter in Chief.”
Between 2009 and 2015 his administration has removed more than 2.5 million people through immigration orders, which doesn’t include the number of people who “self-deported” or were turned away and/or returned to their home country at the border by U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
So, 11 million to be deported by Trump? Where is the outrage over Obama’s shameless bigotry against Hispanics? And why were the immigrant haters always criticizing Obama for not deporting enough immigrants? And why are the specifics of immigration law never mentioned? Do people realize how screwed up these laws really are? And how fair is due process when it entails throwing undocumented immigrants in work camps run by private prison corporations for up to a year so that they get a fair deportation hearing? It would seem that both the “liberals” and “conservatives” in America are lying bigoted hypocrites.
If you know the answer to any of the questions you’ve asked, why didn’t you either state those answers or provide a link to a site which does.
Those are called “rhetorical” questions – statements in a question form, not questions to be filled in with an answer. Like your own rhetorical “… why don’t you either state those answers of provide …”
Thank you.
Another good question to ask is why would people from areas that most Americans would love to vacation in so eager to come to the US, given the risks of coming here?
Why can’t the people there just elect better governments that actually work to improve their conditions?
(Hint, the answer to that last one is easy, if one is familiar with the fates of such attempts in Latin America. The song “Washington Bullets” by the Clash is a quick primer for you)
If this person isn’t an illegal immigrant, rapist, or drug dealer, I agree with her. If one or more of the three, she ought to be humanely sent home.
That would mean – to me – having time to sell any houses or cars or furniture impractical to move “home”.
I don’t believe this is an issue Trump’s Base will excuse him for if he falters. Trump is a wealthy man himself, and will be under tremendous pressure from the people who want the illegals here. Below is a post I made on another site back in August.
The whole issue of the “undocumented” is a fraud generated by the top .1%. Breaking unions and keeping wages down with a host of frightened aliens hurts everyone except the rich and super-rich vermin.
It needs to end, pronto.
By the way, I won’t be a bit surprised if Trump weasels on this one. Following US law isn’t really in his own interest on this issue.
By the way, I won’t be a bit surprised if Trump weasels on this one. Following US law isn’t really in his own interest on this issue.
Nor is a sense of justice.
Is this a slam at Trump, a man who hasn’t actually done anything yet?
Or is it a way of saying that nobody should be deported and US borders ought to be opened to everybody in the world who is any any way oppressed or impoverished in his home country?
The latter course would surely be “just” in most versions of the term excepting the legal.
Zachary – “Or is it a way of saying that nobody should be deported and US borders ought to be opened to everybody in the world who is any any way oppressed or impoverished in his home country?
That’s what it is. If the criteria is “oppressed and impoverished,” that would almost describe the entire world. These types want to open the flood gates and let them pass on through. They do not think long-term.
The conflict between opening or closing the borders simply requires practical planning. While it is impractical to “open the floodgates” it is never been impractical to eliminate most poverty in this hemisphere, and extreme poverty worldwide. As the US has been far too selfish to do so, it no longer has the moral argument of impracticality of opening the borders, unless it immediately puts a large fraction of its budget into relief of poverty. No one talks about that because they must have their luxuries and toys and monuments to themselves to prove their net worth to their worthless countrymen, according to their oligarchy-controlled worldview.
Perhaps a deportation matching plan would be persuasive, for our most unproductive and corrupt rich: take the place of an immigrant in their country of origin, and show us how your productivity there would have saved them from poverty. No assets allowed for them to bring along. Horatio Algers every one.
Perhaps the corrupt rich South of the border will take your advise. Shouldn’t they take responsibility
for the condition of their country or does the USG need fix all countries?
Yes, the corrupt rich of poor countries are ignoble in contrast to the suffering there. But except for extreme cases, their income is often no more than middle or upper middle class income here, and the total resources of those countries is not enough to end extreme poverty. So external assistance is needed, both to ensure adequate aid and to direct it efficiently.
I don’t propose that the US “fix” all countries, because cultural development is slow and frustrating and causes reversals along the way, but we can do a great deal without wasting resources or spending more than can be spared here without too much sacrifice. We can do that with only occasional military intervention, using little more than we spend now on unnecessary militarism.
It is inevitably a long battle, but if the public was assured of health care, education costs, income and retirement security, and the mass media had the responsibility to uphold the values of humanitarian aid, the public would accept the expense and feel much better about our role in the world. We would also have much better security, as there would be no organized opposition to such a nation.
Is this a slam at Trump, a man who hasn’t actually done anything yet?
It is a slam at Trump. The latter part of this sentence should read, “[A] man who hasn’t actually done anything yet as president. He has done a great deal as a businessman, a candidate for president, and president-elect to give signals that the future for many people in and beyond the United States is a great cause for concern. Only people asleep at the switch wait for something to be done before they wake up. Vigilant citizens, which is what we should all be, become pro-active when threats to society become apparent.
In addition to the threats to undocumented immigrants referred to in this article there are, among others:
The possibility of denying women the right to a legal abortion.
Nothing being done to reverse climate change.
Prison for people exercising their First Amendment right to free speech by burning the flag.
Weakening or destroying Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security.
Threatening to tear up the Iran deal. (Tearing up US deal with Iran would be disastrous, says CIA chief: Outgoing US intelligence chief John Brennan says Donald Trump’s opposition to nuclear deal is ‘height of folly’ – https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/nov/30/john-brennan-tearing-up-us-deal-with-iran-would-be-disastrous-says-cia-chief)
The preceding topics have protesters just as those concerned with immigration.
Or is it a way of saying that nobody should be deported and US borders ought to be opened to everybody in the world who is any any(sic) way oppressed or impoverished in his home country?
You’re distorting the point I made. Where US government policy can be shown to have played a significant role in making life untenable for people in their home countries (not “everyone”) then the USG should accept some responsibility for providing them relief. Immigration is one of several options. Getting the satraps installed in the refugees’ homelands and supported by the USG to adopt civilized policies is another. (Good parents teach their children if they do something wrong they have to take responsibility and make amends – a lesson, apparently, not taught universally in the United States.)
Unfortunately, there is a dominant portion of the American people who are like hit-and-run drivers who create death, mayhem and chaos then drive away indifferent to the consequences for their victims. Think Vietnam, Iraq and Libya for starters. Ironically, it is not only these victims who are ignored by the USG but also some of the “drivers.” Think of the troops who were ignored when they complained of being victims of Agent Orange, Gulf War Syndrome, and, in many cases, PTSD from our various illegal wars.
“Nothing being done to reverse climate change.”
I think you people ought to start the Don Quixote Party and stop forcing this farce as a litmus test on otherwise sensible policy proposals.
Those “preceding” topics aren’t what this essay was about. I didn’t vote for Trump, and I agree with you on every topic except the issue of the illegals. In those cases where we mucked up their countries, I’d propose corrective actions back home rather than opening our borders. We owe massive reparations to Haiti for activities dating back to the time of Jefferson.
The illegals were a huge part of what Trump promised, and that issue, along with his claimed opposition to the TPP treaty and his stated desire to avoid war with Russia, is all I approve of with Mr. Trump at this time.
Trump’s own wife was an illegal immigrant, yet he, and his followers, seem to focus only on people with melanin.
Many, if not most, immigrants from Mexico are descended from Native Americans, who fled from land that had been theirs for thousands of years, because illegal immigrants from Europe were hell-bent on slaughtering them. More than 1/3 of the landmass of the US was Mexico, until it was stolen by the US.
Considering no tribe ever gave permission for a large scale immigration from Europe, for European decended people to whine about “illegal immigration” is beyond absurd.
To speak of “desparate and impoverished people”, without recognizing the role that the US has played in creating their impoverishment and desperation, from flooding Mexico with cheap corn, subsidized by US taxpayers to destroy Mexico’s agricultural economy, supporting Genocidal dictators like Arbenz, supporting coups against numerous democratically elected governments (from Allende to the Sandanistas), going back at least to the United Fruit Company -known as Chiquita today, and more recently, the coup in Honduras that sparked the recent wave of child immigrants, plus the blatantly racist history of our immigration laws (which, until recently, labelled Latin Americans coming to this country as “migrants” rather than “immigrants”, thus offering no path to citizenship to the workers that our entire food production system deoends on.) To not look at our meddling in the affairs of their homelands that directly caused their impoverishment and desperation, while condemning them for the results of our actions, is the height of hypocrisy.
If you don’t want the US to take in Syrian refugees, then stop trying to overthrow the elected government of Syria, as that is what forces people to become refugees in the first place.
If you want to stop refugees from Mexico, stop the War On (some) Drugs, that fuels the violence that is displacing people there. (While providing the CIA with funding for black ops by assisting their favored drug cartels.) If you want to stop children from immigrating from Central America, stop overthrowing their democratically elected governments.
If legality is your concern, then stop violating international law in order to maintain hegemony.
But, it seems that rational thought along these lines is just impossible for some people.
We don’t choose to be here. We leave, our parents leave our homelands, to create a better future. Because in our homelands there’s lots of violence and things that we have to run away from,” she said. “If it wasn’t for our parents moving here, who knows, we might not even be alive at this point in time.”
A very important point that is missing here and in the minds of Trump and his supporters is that US political and economic policies have been major factors in creating the mass of refugees moving north from Central America and into, if they survive, the United States. The circumstances are similar in the cases of refugees risking their lives to escape from North Africa and the Middle East to emigrate to Europe. Yet again, we have additional examples of denials of responsibility and shirking of accountability.
It is obvious from this article and many others that family relationships are very important to the people threatened by Trump and his more bigoted supporters so that for most of these refugees just leaving their homes is merely the first of many cruel hazards they have to face.
I doubt if Trump plans to get rid of every one of the 11 million. He will be VERY focused on the people who have committed crimes These people are crazy to draw that kind of attention to themselves when they have entered the country illegally. If I were them, I would be very respectful, learn the language, get a job, and have a low profile. These criminals
should be disliked by all law abiding (illegal) immigrants as it casts a shadow on all their companions. If they are caught coming back a second time, I don’t think humanely is a word that should be used. They are asking for trouble, and they should not expect any leniency.
Exactly. There is always a good argument against the criminal, all other things being equal. But they are not.
1. The US stole all of its territory from others, or forced them to give it up, and therefore has no territorial argument.
2. It consists almost entirely of immigrants, and therefore has no argument against the latest wave.
3. It has a long history of immigrant assimilation issues, and therefore has no excuse of ignorance.
4. It has no humanitarian program to benefit poor Mexico, and therefore has no argument against immigration.
5. It has no investment/training/insurance plan for its own poor, and therefore has no argument against crime.
The anti-immigration people are simply selfish, pulling the ladder up once they are out of the pit of poverty, and this is what history will record of the US.
I have suffered losses from the crime of the immigrant and indigenous poor, but I will not pretend any inherent superiority. Let us have large programs of international humanitarian aid, especially in this hemisphere, and self-help programs of aid for the domestic poor; then we may have cause to sanction the illegal immigrant and the criminal.
But the US oligarchy prefers to luxuriously choose sides in every conflict around the world on the basis of bribery, to maintain the supply of little countries to bomb at the expense of the working class, and to blame the victims of circumstance everywhere for matters beyond their control. The oligarchy are the enemies of humanity everywhere: consign them to the pit, and we can make progress for humanity. They contribute nothing, and no one will miss them.
Sam F – agree with almost everything you say, and most of what you say above, but not all. New word: selfish. Another to go along with “racist” and “bigoted” and “ignorant” and “redneck”.
Yes, the U.S. stole all of its territory from others, but so did almost everybody else when you look at history. The Native Americans took slaves, and took the land of others too. And the blacks in Africa rounded up their own to sell to the slave traders. It’s a dog eat dog world, unfortunately. Not saying it’s right.
For all of the bad the West has done, it has done a lot of good too. Consider the food aid that is delivered to Third World countries (although remittances have now overtaken that amount), along with the medical aid. The infant mortality rate has gone way down in these countries, and it’s solely because of the above.
Between the corrupt leaders in the West and the corrupt leaders in developing countries (and, yes, there are many), the people of the world suffer. Their corrupt leaders sell out to the West, selling resources, keeping their own people poor, and we prop up these corrupt leaders for our own ends.
We have good people like Castro, and others like Gaddafi and Assad who try so hard to help their countrymen, and what do we do? We sanction them, we coup them, we murder them. Cuba would have been fine, if not for the sanctions. Unless they bend to what we want, they are crushed. This is unconscionable.
But to bring it all down to selfishness on the part of the U.S. citizens is ridiculous, that all of us want to pull up the ladder because we’ve finally arrived is far too simple.
I’ll write more about this later; I don’t have time at the moment.
Yes, I noticed the over-generalization later. Self-interest is always balanced against the interests of others, and it becomes selfishness only when the balance is unfair to others, so the term implies a judgment of circumstances. So when I say that “anti-immigration people are simply selfish” I am referring to those who, without compelling personal circumstances (which exempts the under/unemployed) and having surplus income (which exempts the lower middle class), refuse both to accept immigrants (unless exploitable) and to support humanitarian programs in poor countries.
I deal most often with the irresponsible middle class and above, who are mostly looking for excuses to keep taxes down so that they can have more luxuries, and seek excuses to blame poor nations and immigrants therefrom for their poverty, so as to deny humanitarian aid. It is easy to forget that many people here would also be receiving such aid or not paying the cost of it.
But I think that most of the benefits the US has had upon poor nations are indirect via technology, and without cost to the US. Trade helps them (in some ways harms them) although profitable to the developed nations. But our real foreign aid amounts only to about one meal annually to the poorest nations. Much of it is ill-planned or lost to corruption, and has requirements for purchasing US goods which is often very inefficient. The rest is military aid which causes harm at least as often as it helps. The US has the lowest foreign aid per GNP of any developed nation, and less than half that of some EU nations.
If the US and EU had spent their bloated military budgets since WWII on humanitarian aid, they could have lifted the poorest half of the world from poverty, instead of murdering ten million or so and ignoring the vastly greater unnecessary deaths from disease and starvation. It is that reflection that occasions my over-generalization.
“If Trump thinks that it will be easy to round up what he calls the “bad hombres” and the rest of the 11 million undocumented immigrants, he may discover that many of them — and their families and friends — believe this land is just as much their land as it is his land.”
Yes, they may *believe* it is their land, but that doesn’t make it so. There could be no more tone deaf approach to the issue on the part of illegal immigrants and their advocates than parading behind the Mexican flag and pleading some ancestral claim on the land.
… and pleading some ancestral claim on the land.
That is a privilege reserved exclusively for Israelis.
Very true. I had to laugh at the brevity of this strong argument. The article does not seem to contain any reference to the flag of Mexico, either: the immigrants do not want to return.