The Roots of Trump’s Immigration Policy
https://socialistaction.org/2020/08/15/the-roots-of-trumps-immigration-policy/
August 15, 2020
By BARRY SHEPPARD
Sand and Blood: America’s Stealth War on the Mexico Border
By John Carlos Frey
Bold Type Books, 2019
This book presents a harrowing well-researched description of
Washington’s war against immigrants on the Mexican border. The author is
an investigative journalist and documentary filmmaker.
Frey was born in Tijuana, Mexico. His parents moved across the border to
southern San Diego in 1965, where he could see Tijuana as a child. His
mother was Mexican, and his father was a United States citizen, so he
was a U.S. citizen too, which enabled him to move fairly freely back and
forth between the U.S. and Mexico.
Americans are well aware of Trump’s cruel treatment of immigrants and
asylum seekers at the border. Less well known is how the stage was set
for Trump’s war against immigrants by previous administrations.
A qualitative turning point came in 1986 under the Regan administration,
as immigration from Mexico grew, with what became known as the “amnesty
bill” because it allowed legal status for many undocumented immigrants
who had worked in the U.S. for years and had put down roots.
“But the bill did not address the root causes for the migration …. [T]he
bill’s authors also made sure to provide for a militaristic approach to
border enforcement. [It] would be fortified with physical barriers, and
more border guards would be deployed” Frey writes.
“If the United States was going to grant an exception to codified
immigration law by granting amnesty, it was going to make sure, by sheer
force, that migrants would not come illegally again.” But, of course,
they continued to come anyway.
Frey also says, “Southern California was the destination for
undocumented immigrants, and they would gain access to the United States
through Tijuana and cross into San Diego …. But in the late eighties and
early nineties, this pristine area became one of the main centers for
the militarization of the border with Mexico.”
Under the administration of George H.W. Bush, 1989-93, the size of the
Border Patrol was doubled and seven hundred miles of new border fencing
was built. But the real militarization of the border began under Bill
Clinton as immigration continued to grow along with anti-immigration
sentiment whipped up by the Republicans.
Sensing a winning issue, Clinton out-Republicaned the Republicans on
immigration. Under Clinton’s order, the Border Patrol issued the Border
Patrol Strategic Plan 1994 and Beyond – National Strategy, which became
known as the “prevention through deterrence strategy,” which is still
being employed today.
The strategy was to build up fencing and Border Patrol agents at the
border between El Paso, Texas and Juarez, Mexico, and to do the same
between Tijuana and San Diego. This would force those entering the U.S.
without documents to cross the border in the inhospitable and sometimes
scorching hot terrain of mountains and desert.
The trek across this terrain is long and difficult. Many die along the
way, most often from dehydration – this is the “deterrence.” The border
between El Paso and Juarez is the Rio Grande, crossed by bridges. Some
try to evade the Border Patrol by swimming or using rafts to cross the
river, and there are drownings – another “deterrence.”
It isn’t known how many migrants have died in the deserts and mountains
since “prevention through deterrence” was implemented, for reasons Frey
explains, but it is in the thousands. Many bodies and skeletons have
been found by humanitarian volunteers who venture into these areas to
leave water for the migrants.
These heroic volunteers notify local authorities, who sometimes can bury
the bodies. But most of the time they can only advise the Border Patrol
where the bodies are. Although the Patrol has the resources to find and
bury the corpses, and keep track how many there are – and are supposed
to do so – they most often do nothing.
In his State of the Union address to Congress in 1995, Clinton struck
many themes and presented falsehoods still used today by Trump:
“All Americans, not only in the states most heavily affected but every
place in this country, are rightly disturbed by the large numbers of
illegal aliens entering our country. The jobs they hold might otherwise
be held by citizens or legal immigrants. The public services they use
impose burdens on our taxpayers. That’s why our administration has moved
aggressively to secure our borders by hiring a record number of new
border guards, by deporting twice as many criminal aliens as ever
before, by cracking down on illegal hiring, by barring welfare benefits
to illegal aliens….”
When Clinton ended “welfare as we know it” in 1996, included in the bill
was the provision that barred even legal immigrants from accessing
welfare for the first five years of their stay in the U.S.
Also in that year, Clinton signed the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death
Penalty Act, after the World Trade Center and Oklahoma City bombings.
The Act allowed the government to increase prosecutions and arrests of
suspected “terrorists.” But it also allowed immigrants, legal or
otherwise, to be apprehended and detained without due process, if they
were convicted of certain felonies. As a result, the number of
immigrants held in detention doubled.
Another law signed by Clinton, the Illegal Immigration Reform and
Immigrant Responsibility Act, placed new restrictions on immigrants
anywhere in the country who were caught without documents, denying them
due process. If an undocumented immigrant was deported, they could not
apply for any legal means to re-enter the U.S. for ten years. This meant
families of mixed-status undocumented, documented and citizen members
could be separated for ten years. Most likely, those deported would try
to re-enter the country without documentation.
The law also allowed the Attorney General’s office to, in effect,
deputize local law enforcement as federal immigration officers. Sheriffs
and cops could stop anyone and demand proof of legal residency. This
measure sent shock waves of fear in Latino communities. People stopped
trusting police, and avoided reporting crimes to local police, lest they
be deported.
Clinton also made it even harder for migrants to apply for legal
documents to enter. The reason there are so many immigrants crossing the
border without documents, is that it can take years – even two decades –
to get legal documents for migrants from Mexico and points South.
Also under Clinton, the military increasingly was used at the border to
enforce anti-immigrant laws. The Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 said the
military cannot be used as a police force domestically – unless the
Congress or the President authorizes it. This loophole was rarely used,
but that has been reversed in the war against immigrants at the Mexico
border.
In the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, the “War on Terror” was launched
justifying the war against Afghanistan and Iraq, and with attacks on
civil liberties domestically. The border with Mexico was falsely claimed
to be an entry point for terrorists, and the militarization was greatly
increased. Under George W. Bush, the annual budget for the the Border
Patrol jumped from $1 billion to $2 billion. Under Obama and Trump the
amount continued to rise and is now around $4 billion.
Bush established the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the
Bureau of Customs and Border Protection (CBP), which took over all
functions of Customs, Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS),
including the Border Patrol, creating the largest police force in the
country – some 60,000. It was composed of Customs and Border Patrol
agents, and immigration inspectors. ICE did not fall under the CBP, but
was part of DHS.
The George W. Bush administration added another law, making crossing the
border without papers a crime for the first time.
The Trump administration’s cruel border policies required no new laws.
The laws passed under Clinton and Bush – whose policies were continued
and expanded by Obama – sufficed.
Under Obama, ICE ballooned to 20,000 employees, with 400 offices around
the country. Its duties morphed to include a massive immigrant detention
center complex, and deportation force, with a budget of $6 billion. ICE
operates throughout the country, but also in the border area where the
Border Patrol operates.
“Obama continued the legacy of all U.S. presidents and administrations
since Ronald Reagan, making life more difficult for immigrants,” Frey
writes. “Obama’s rate of deportations of immigrants already established
in the country was higher than any president before or since. During his
eight years in office, Obama deported more than five million people,
and, so far [2019] even Trump has not beat that record.
Frey notes that, “Obama also expanded family detention facilities for
women with their children,” as a response to an influx of thousands of
Central Americans fleeing violence and poverty.
The stage was set by both Democrats and Republicans for the openly
racist Trump to intensify and deepen the war against immigrants on the
border, in all the horrific manifestations we see today.
End the deportations! Immediate legalization and full equal rights for
all immigrants! Open the border!
Socialist Action News
Sign up for our weekly newsletter:
Your email address
Related Articles
A Manifesto for Our Times: The Challenge to Abolish Systemic Racism
August 13, 2020
Initiated by Alice Walker, Glen Ford, Pam Africa, Jeff Mackler, and many
more! This manifesto is being circulated far and wide. To sign, email
socialjusticemanifesto2020@xxxxxxxxx
Which Way for Today’s Mass Radicalization? Capitalism’s Impending
Catastrophe…or the Socialist Future
August 5, 2020
By JEFF MACKLER
Predatory capitalism is facing its greatest crises ever: deadly
pandemic, constant brutal racist repression, mass unemployment, mass
evictions, accelerating environmental destruction, endless war…and it
has no solutions.
Amidst the COVID-19 Pandemic, the U.S. War Machine Presses On
July 24, 2020
U.S. imperialism continues its wars of plunder and profit against
countries around the world.
--
___
Carl Sagan
“Every aspect of Nature reveals a deep mystery and touches our sense of wonder
and awe. Those afraid of the universe as it really is, those who pretend to
nonexistent knowledge and envision a Cosmos centered on human beings will
prefer the fleeting comforts of superstition. They avoid rather than confront
the world. But those with the courage to explore the weave and structure of the
Cosmos, even where it differs profoundly from their wishes and prejudices, will
penetrate its deepest mysteries.”
― Carl Sagan, Cosmos
